The 'Chu Brothers: A New World
by Gaming Is Fiction Life
Summary: Manny has the chance to see Cord-his best friend that suddenly disappeared- for the first time in years, and he immediately takes it. But it might not be the way he really expects it to be... Rated T for swearing. (Disclaimer: I don't own Pokemon or Nintendo, and this is purely out of my enjoyment.) Cover made by ImberLapis from Wattpad.
1. Copyright And Legend

**(You can skip this part and go to the Legend part of this.)**

**Copyright:**

Copyright Disclaimer under section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, education and research.

Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing.

Pokémon is owned by Nintendo and Gamefreak.

Cord is owned by NotDoohickey from Wattpad

Lira (only in Chapter 14) is owned by @SilyaBeeodess

Manny, Abby, Chris, Harmony and J are owned by me.

All Pokémon are owned by Game Freak, and are published by Nintendo.

"Sunflower" was made by Post Malone and Swae Lee.

Title cover made by ImberLapis from Wattpad

**Legend**

"Hello!" = Talking

_Hello!_ = Telepathy (Mainly used by Cord.)

'Hello!' = Manny's way of talking when someone is speaking via Telepathy toward him (This story is in first person.)

**Hello! **= Author's notes

*** **= A change of setting


	2. Prologue: The Disappearance

**Note: "Hello" is speaking, _Hello _will be telepathy, and 'Hello' is thoughts Manny is going to have. This story will mainly be in first person. Enjoy!  
**

**Prologue: The Disappearance**

**12/27/2016**

**11:00 am**

**Entrance of Weird Woods**

Cord was… a strange person to say the least. I didn't really get to know him that much since I met him four months ago, and yet I still consider him as a best friend. But I wasn't really sure why he would call me to go to Weird Woods.

And I didn't question it either.

Weird Woods got its name after two 90's kids disappeared and never came back. Despite all the work done in the investigation, the case went cold. But there's a weird rumor in all of this that the woods somehow change its layout every day… It's not like I believe that rumor.

Anyway, I placed my bike in the pathway that led to the woods and saw a tall boy with tan skin, dark hair—which was always a mess—and blue eyes standing right at the entrance. It was Cord, waiting for me to come. It felt creepy, but he's probably done that to other people before.

I took a couple of steps toward him and finally said, "Hey Cord! This better be important because I had to stop my homework to get over here."

"Trust me, Manny. It's worth it."

Cord made a hand gesture and entered Weird Woods. I-reluctantly-followed along and got my very first look at the forest. Trees surrounded the both of us with grass covering our feet. There was this weird smell in the air that I couldn't identify immediately. And there were no signs of wildlife, which was pretty weird.

Eventually, we reached an open field full of grass. Cord ran in front of me and took a heavy sigh. "You know… The first time I met you, I never thought my life would change right in front of me."

I squinted my eyes to create a stern expression. "You're stalling," I responded

Cord smiled and chuckled. "You see right through me Manny. I guess I'll have to tell you. The reason why we're here is because of this."

Cord moved his hand to what was behind him, an empty grass field. Suddenly, a bright light flashed blinded me. It was white at first, but changed into red, then orange, until all the colors of the rainbow were shown. It definitely wasn't human, that was for sure.

He turned around and started walking toward the light. "Cord? What are you doing?"

"I'll see you in a year, Manny," Cord simply responded. He moved his left hand—like he was dropping something—and kept moving forward until I couldn't see him again. Then the lights just disappeared into the regular skyline. Did that just happen?

In front of me was a tiny box. I picked it up and it had the title, "Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky." Cord's favorite game. "What have you gotten yourself into, Cord," I said to myself, looking up to the sky after. I never thought I would see him again…

Until now.


	3. A Little Dream Makes One Big Adventure

**Chapter 1: A Little Dream Makes One Big Adventure**

**12/26/19**

**10:00 pm**

**(My Bedroom) Jersey City, New Jersey; United States**

"One year my ass," I mumbled to myself while laying down on my bed. And I did mean that.

It had been almost three years since Cord disappeared from Weird Woods and the town of Jersey City, New Jersey was as clueless as ever. No one got an answer to where he was, and asked even more questions than when the two kids in the 90's disappeared. And the majority of those questions went straight to me. Since I was the only person to witness his disappearance, a lot of people—which included the press and police—asked me questions that I couldn't even begin to answer. Heck, I even had to show where I last saw Cord...

Twice!

So yeah, I'm not too happy with Cord. But that doesn't mean I'm grateful. As it turned out, Cord left a note inside the game cartridge. The note went along the lines like this:

Dear Manny,

When you read this, I will be gone. Now, I understand you might be mad at me, and I'm sorry about that. It was something I truly had to do. Maybe you might understand if you were in the same situation. For now until I return, you can have my favorite game, Explorers of Sky.

You might just be surprised of where I was once I come back.

From Cord.

P.S.: Don't show this to anyone.

I was reluctant at first to touch anything related to the note. So my DS, the game cartridge, and the actual note was sitting in my room collecting dust for the past 2 years… All the way until two months ago. It was at that point that I realized that Cord actually wanted me to play this game and enjoy it—even if he's gone. I got everything set up in a few minutes and started playing the game.

First, you had the personality quiz. In all the Mystery Dungeon games, you always had to take this feature to find out what Pokémon would "best suit" you. This was possible by having a point-based system that tracked what answers you put. Honestly, the result can be pretty amazing if you're very lucky and pretty terrible if you get a Pokémon you hate. I spent the first half-hour trying rigging the game trying to get my—and coincidently Cord's—favorite Pokémon, Pikachu...

Quite frankly, I think Cord liked Raichu more than Pikachu, but whenever I asked that question, he would quickly change the subject.

Anyway, after what seemed like a million attempts, I finally got Pikachu, chose a partner—it was an Eevee if you were wondering—and got started on the story.

The regular story was pretty surprising. I only knew the first five chapters—because of my background knowledge of the game—and played blind the rest of the entire story. The game got tremendously hard near the end since I was at a disadvantage every single matchup. And it took me about four days to finish the story from when I started.

There's also a postgame storyline in this game. It was longer to finish since it required a lot more training—something that I didn't take for granted—and better ideas for fighting. But something stood out to me when I got near to the final battle. Somehow, I kept on recruiting members left and right—and the majority of the recruiting so far was based on luck. This reason made me realize that I can do an achievement that is almost impossible to finish...

Recruit them all. All 492 Pokémon available.

I spent days after the postgame on end grinding, hoping that I could get lucky and grab at least one Pokemon for my list. Usually I would go for days and end up finding nothing to progress in my game. Sometimes, I find at most one or two Pokemon that wanted to join—and I would celebrate for about ten seconds after I finished playing. There was even one day that I had found twelve Pokemon wanting to join me!

And that day I truly celebrated by grabbing a pizza from Two Boots Pizza.

Today I finally have one more Pokémon left before I officially finish that achievement. And coincidently, Raichu was the only Pokémon left. "Let's see. Where can I find a Raichu…" I told myself. I was scrolling the dungeon map when I found this on the dungeon name list:

**Charred Chambers**

"Charred Chambers?" I questioned while reading the name. "What the heck is that?" It could be a glitch that goes to a random dungeon. But shouldn't they have noticed this and fixed the problem before the game went out? After a few moments of thinking, I decided to press my luck and enter the "dungeon."

Once I clicked on the dungeon name, the screen faded to black and the white text said this:

**Charred Chambers**

**1F**

The layout of the floor was only one room, with the stairs right behind an object. On the mini map above, a blue dot would mean that an item is nearby.

But it was red, indicating that an enemy was there.

I took a couple of steps forward and found myself stunned. The Pokémon right in front of me was a Raichu. But something was weird about it.

It wasn't moving towards me.

I took one step forward towards it, but the Raichu still wasn't moving. I repeated this multiple times until I was right next to the Raichu, and it still didn't move anywhere. I pressed the X button on my DS to input a combo attack for the Pikachu but both attacks missed. My Eevee partner followed up with a combo attack as well, but she missed both attacks still…

After a few minutes of being confused, I decided to press the A button to at the very least give a flail attack. But instead of an attacking animation from happening a text box appeared:

Hey! Raichu wants to join your team! Will you accept Raichu as a member?

Well that was… surprisingly easy! I accepted the Raichu and decided to give the nickname I wanted to give this entire time: C-o-r-d.

He would be so proud of me right now…

"Manny!" That was my mom calling me from across the house. "It's time to go to sleep!"

"Okay, mom!" I yelled back to her. After I brushed my teeth and went to the bathroom, I went to sleep with something in the back of my mind. I could have been imagining it, but…

Was that Raichu floating?

* * *

**11:00 pm**

**?**

I finally got some sleep. Although, it was a sleep I never felt before. Instead of my comfy, soft bed, it was hard and cold. And the cold was tingling my spine. Whatever was going on, it wasn't my bed. Unless…

I slowly opened my eyes and found myself staring at nothingness.

I mean nothing.

The setting was a blank canvas of white surrounding me with no limit of an end at sight. "Where… am I?" I asked myself.

"Ugh…"

I turned around and found myself looking at a Pikachu. It was laying on a crater—which it probably made from falling to there. As for the Pikachu itself, it seemed generally unharmed by the impact. How?

Pokémon logic.

Anyway, a couple of moments later, the strange Pikachu was fully awake and started looking around. "Where am I?" The Pikachu said to look down at its yellow paws. "W-What happened to me?"

Wait, I thought to myself, that voice…

"Cord? Is that you?" I tried to take a deeper look at him, but suddenly everything around me started getting foggy. Pretty soon, I couldn't see anything right in front of me. What I didn't expect next was the words that came out of Cord.

"Cord? Do… D-Do I know you?"

At that moment, two things went into my head. Either one, I have officially lost it. Or two, that is somehow Cord and he forgot who he was. As a stupid idea, I decided to do the second option. "It's Manny." I responded quickly. A sharp pain suddenly came to everywhere in my body—with the most pain coming from my butt.

Once the pain eventually subsided, Cord got out of his thinking trance. "That… Sounds familiar. Am I supposed to be this, 'Cord?'"

"Your parents named you that, right?"

To new parents looking at this: don't name your child based on objects.

Anyway, silence came around us for a few moments when something hit me. If this could be a dream, how would I know if it's real? It's not like I would see Cord again, right?

Eventually after Cord couldn't notice where I was now, he asked me, "Where are you Manny?"

"I don't really know. But I have a wish… I want to see you again."

After that statement, everything I saw was black.

* * *

**12/27/19**

**7:00am**

**?**

Meanwhile, an Alolan Raichu arrived at the entrance of a gate. The Raichu looked around as if he was looking for something.

"Just here to get an item… Not like I'm going to find him in here anyway."

The Raichu then entered the cave… And started something brand new.

***Game File Saved***


	4. Raichu are Real

**Chapter 2: Raichu are Real**

**12/27/19**

**7:05 am**

**? B3F**

Waking up from all this was weird. You can't feel anything from yourself and/or outside of you. So I still didn't know what was going on with me… For the time being.

Anyway, if I understood what just happened, did Cord just turn into a Pikachu? It sounds crazy, sure, but… That feeling I always had when he was near me came back to me again for that moment. So, it could be him, unless I figure out where he truly is.

The ground started rumbling underneath me and it finally woke me up mentally from the weird slumber. It couldn't have been an earthquake, since I lived on the East Coast. And the surface I'm lying on doesn't feel like my bed.

My eyes slowly opened to find myself seeing a rocky surface. Apparently, I was on the bottom of a hole that was placed in the middle of the room. Above me, the surface was uneven, as there were bumps of rock every so often in the distance. But wherever this was, it was definitely not my bedroom.

Pretty soon, I was fully awake, with my eyes looking around to see the rough, pointy walls of stone. "Where the heck am I now?" I said to myself. Everything was aching from my body, with the majority of all the pain coming from my upper legs and torso. Yet, I was able to stand up in a couple seconds.

Go figure.

After I somehow stood up, I began to notice a few things that didn't sit right with me. For starters, with my body aching everywhere, my sense of comfortability was completely gone—like my body was rearranged or something. All of my energy somehow came back to me, even though I was just unconscious a few moments ago. And obviously, the place I was in was in no way familiar to me.

Meanwhile, I wasn't paying attention to what was right in front of me. So I ended up getting out of the hole, walking a couple of steps forward, and immediately face-planting myself after I tripped on a rock. I don't really need to say this, but at least I didn't really feel as much pain then...

I let out a groan that echoed through the room and probably past that, since there were two pathways that exited the room.

At this point, I really wanted to know what happened to me and why I was here. As it turned out, that would be answered pretty quickly. When I pushed myself up with my arms, I glanced down to take another look at the surface. That glance suddenly turned into a stare as I was dumbfounded by what I saw below me.

Instead of human hands with skin, I found myself staring at paws with yellow fur.

"What… How do I have yellow on me?"

_A Pikachu…? These things keep on getting weirder._

A noise echoed in my mind that felt familiar and confusing at the same time. I decided to turn around and was able to take a look at a creature staring right at me. The thing was a dark orange colored rodent, having a white belly from the fur it had. To go along its white paws, its large, yellow ears gave a lot of red flags on the play. The best part about it—or the worst part about it for me at the time—was that it was floating midair on top of it's huge tail.

This made me realize what it was very quickly. "An Alolan Raichu?" I said under my breath. I pinched my arm and a sharp pain came to me almost immediately. I wasn't dreaming… How's that even possible?

Meanwhile, the Alolan Raichu was still staring at me, pretty confused about what was going on. And the only idea I had with me right now wasn't too good to be called one. I stared at the Raichu—which he at least paid attention to me—and took a deep breath. "Can you describe me?" I asked it. In about three seconds, the Raichu's face changed from confused to a face that questioned my sanity. "Can you just do it?"

After a sigh of defeat, the Raichu answered, "Fine. You have yellow fur, red electrical cheeks, and a thunderbolt-shaped tail... I can't believe I'm telling this to a Pokémon."

The sentence that I think came from the Raichu earlier came back to me. A Pikachu? That doesn't make any sense!

"That doesn't describe a human," I finally responded to him in pure denial. That statement right there was a enormous mistake I made.

"Human?!" the Raichu shouted. Maybe I shouldn't have said that...

I started looking at my body, and it was exactly as the Raichu described. Including the tail part—as it was shaking violently! "What happened to me?" I said out loud.

The Raichu ignored me for the moment as it was taking out something from a bag he had with him. I never got the chance to look inside it since it was over as soon as it started. The Raichu took out a light aqua orb. The specific orb had a weird… vibe to me. It made me feel weird since these items exist, happy since my instinct told me that it could help us later—which was a new one for me—and afraid of what the current situation was going on now.

The Raichu held the orb in front of my face. I hesitantly walked right in front of the orb and looked at it. This didn't come to me as a surprise with what I saw, and it probably won't be to you either.

What I saw was a Pikachu's face in front of the orb. "Is that me?"

"Yes!" The Raichu grinned. He kept it for a couple of moments before putting the orb back into the bag.

I looked at the Raichu's chubby face. "How am I a Pikachu?"

"I don't know," he said, "But, I have an errand to do right now… You want to come along?"

I thought for a moment there. It's true I have no idea where to go. And I guess going with this Pokémon wouldn't hurt. And, hopefully, I can find out why this happened to… me.

That sounded cliché-ish.

"Sure, I guess," I said with some hesitation. The Raichu floated back up to the air and started going to a pathway in the south and I followed him.

As we got through the pathways, I started to realize that there were a lot more of those than I originally thought. I was about to make a comment about direction, but I ended up saying nothing. I knew that the Raichu knew where it was going… I hope.

Eventually, we both got to a very steep cliff. Across the other side, was a very bright light—which probably led to another room. I looked down and the Raichu pulled me back immediately. "Careful! One wrong step could land you all the way back on the first floor!"

Did he just say "first floor?"

"Oh boy..." I gulped and took a step back. The gap between the two pieces of gravel wasn't that far… I believed at the time it was about thirty feet long. I took a couple of more steps back and realized the Raichu was staring at me doing this.

"What are you doing?" He asked. What came next was something I didn't expect.

I took off running using my two short legs and my two short arms.

Every two steps I took, my speed steadily increased. I reached a point where I couldn't stop myself from running so I only had one option that I had to do.

I jumped. Right then and there, I immediately closed my eyes to expect the worse. But I felt myself rolling onto something after I started my descent.

It was ground—meaning I landed. A tug from my newly acquired tail made me realize I've completely stopped moving.

"Nice job!" the Raichu cheered. It used its psychic tail to float to the other side—which probably took a lot less effort than I did. "I think the item we're looking for is just around the corner now." When we entered the room, there was only one item on the floor. It was a different colored orb, as this orb had a light-blue colored taint which made me stare at the Raichu in front of me. The Raichu hopped off its tail and picked up the orb. "Reviver Orb. Can be used to revive anyone who holds the orb…" He placed it in the bag and turned to me. "I got what I wanted. It's time to get out of here."

"But how?" The Raichu made a gesture to get closer. I went right next to him and he touched my shoulder.

Right then and there, everything went immediately dark.

* * *

**8:00 am**

**?**

I would have thought at that point I would have woken up from this weird dream, but that idea would soon go to waste. My eyes slowly opened to see the Raichu looking down at me in front of a blue skyline.

"You okay?" he asked me. I nodded and sat myself up. The area around me was a large plain expanding into the entire viewing distance I could see. In the south, a forest was vaguely seen in the distance.

"What was—."

"That was Teleport," the Raichu interrupted, "I can't really explain how it works, only that it does."

I wasn't going to even question how that worked, but whatever. There was one question that was still looming in my mind and so I asked the question to Raichu. "What was that place we were just in?"

The Raichu thought for a minute. "Well," he responded finally, "that was a mystery dungeon. The layout always changes every time you enter it. Now as for the name…" The Raichu looked in multiple directions, but ultimately ended up looking south. "If you go in that direction and take a left into the forest… You would eventually reach the entrance of the dungeon, called Charred Chambers."

Did he say what I thought he said? I was in disbelief. "That's the place I found in… Cord's game." I drooped my head and ears.

I didn't want to admit it, but I miss Cord. His personality was something I've never experienced before, and I believed if he could have stayed a little bit longer, I would grow from him personality wise. I just wished I knew where he was...

"Wait... Manny?"

My ears perked up, and I shot my head to Raichu's face. I never told my name so… "How do you know my name?"

The Raichu grinned and only said five words. "Because my name is Cord."

***Game File Saved***

**Fun Fact: The Reviver Orb is an actual item, and it will be used later on in the story.**


	5. Time Flies

**A/N: Just to be used as a reminder, _hello_ is ****telepathy and it will be used starting this chapter.**

**Chapter 3: Time Flies**

**12/27/19**

**12:00 pm**

**Plains**

I'm a picky eater. Whether it's no cheese in a hamburger, to not eating sardines entirely, I limited my food choices.

So I was reluctant to eat the three blue berries Cord gave me.

"Come on, Manny," Cord urged me, "I know your habits hate trying new foods, but you have to get uncomfortable here."

You could say that again. I lifted one of the blue berries in the air and took a bite of it. I kept on chewing on it until I realized…

I enjoyed it! My mouth was slightly open with the chewed food still there-which I admit wasn't proper, and I stared at the berry I took a bite out of. I quickly swallowed what I had and started eating as quickly as I could. "What is this?! It tastes so good!" I asked with food in my mouth.

"That, my friend, is an Oran Berry."

I finished eating when he finished the sentence. "That. Was. Amazing."

"Glad you liked it," Cord said.

I stopped myself from enjoying this moment. 'I'm having a real conversation to Cord for the first time in years…'

_…Years?_

"Ahh!" I fell back from where I was sitting onto the grass floor. "What was that?!"

"Oops," Cord said walking on his two feet, "I forgot to mention I can look into Pokémon's thoughts since I'm a Psychic type now. That and… telepathy."

He gave me a hand… Paw? Whatever, he gave me a "paw" to get up and I took it. "But really," Cord said surprised, "What did you mean by years?"

"I-Um… It's been more than a year since I last saw you."

A moment of silence occurred, with Cord staring at me.

"You're joking, right?" I shook my head in disagreement. "How long?"

"Well, it depends," I said, "If time works in sync here with our world, then today has been exactly three years since you left." Silence once again took over, with Cord walking three steps away from me.

He took a deep breath, and said under his breath, "You've got to be kidding me."

"Something tells me you are not happy."

"Damn right I'm not happy. _She _told me that could come back after a year."

'She? Who's she?'

_…I have no idea._

"Wait, what?" I stared at him stunned. How could Cord not remember who someone looked like? Cord looked at me in the face, with a stern expression. It's almost like…

'Oh.'

"You forgot everything when you first arrived… Didn't you?"

Cord nodded. "I don't want to talk about it now."

And once again, silence took over. Cord got to eating his portion of berries-which I resisted to take his food, just barely. "Cord, can I ask you a question? What the heck did I do in Charred Chambers?"

Cord thought about that for a moment and finally said to me grinning, "I think you learned a move!"

…Move. Never thought I would hear that word in this context.

"So… I was able to reach a speed I've never reached as a human, and you're calling that a move?"

"To include the speed you were having," Cord commented, "a tailwind occurred just before you jumped that mini cliff."

'Please don't remind me of that mini cliff.' Let's see, speed occurred… Tailwind also appeared… And I was able to jump a far distance.

"Was that… Quick Attack?" I looked at Cord.

"You know what…" Cord started smiling and chuckling under his breath. "It was."

I, too, started smiling out of joy.

But now since that's out of the way… "So, what do you want to do now?"

"Well… I guess we could stay here for the day, since there's nothing else here."

I tilted my head confused. "How could we out here?"

"Well, it's like the same way as camping, only that we're Pokémon. You get firewood, I'll get water."

And to that agreement, we got to work.

* * *

**12/28/19**

**9:45 am**

**Idle River (Waterfall)**

_(If you were wondering why I decided to skip the rest of the day, there wasn't really anything important to tell.)_

I don't know why, but I hate cold showers. A couple of months ago, my family's water heater broke making all the showers cold. I only showered four times in the entire month that the water heater was broken…

But for some reason I enjoyed the shower coming from the waterfall.

Let me backtrack. About thirty minutes ago, Cord showed me the place he got water from. Cord called it Idle River, but despite the name the waterflow was a lot faster than I was expecting. We went north from the spot of the river and I just so happened to find this waterfall.

Anyway, I was taking a shower in the waterfall when I heard something…

_Manny._

My eyes opened almost immediately. I probably shouldn't have done that, since water got into my eyes. But the same voice came back.

_Can you hear me?_

"…yes?" I responded. It wasn't Cord, because the voice sounded more feminine. But then again, who would know my name?

_You're probably wondering who and where am I. Time will soon reveal itself._

"Um, okay?" I looked at the surrounding around me. Forest, river, and more forest surrounded me.

_I'll leave you with this… Welcome to the Pokémon World._

"I'm sorry, what?!" The voice didn't respond. It was gone.

"Manny!" Cord floated right next to the edge of the river. "I heard shouting. Is something wrong?"

Just to confirm… "Did you talk to me via telepathy?"

"…No. Why?"

"Never mind." I got out of the waterfall and shook all the excess water out of me- which was another instinct that was placed in my mind. "So, anything in mind before we go?" Cord started moving to the forest, and I followed.

We ended up stopping at a familiar tree with one straight line of a thin hole. "Oh, not again."

Yesterday, Cord stopped by when I was picking firewood to notice this same tree. He called me to try to cut down the tree using my newly acquired tail. Long story short, I was in a lot of pain after the attempt.

"Manny, I know you can use Iron Tail."

"How do you even know I have Iron Tail as a move?" Try to beat that.

"…How do you think you stopped rolling in Charred Chambers."

I-Um… Uh… Touché.

I took a very deep breath… And jumped toward the tree. At around the last second, I twisted my body and swung my tail toward the tree.

But instead of my tail being stopped at the trunk, I swung entirely through the tree.

The tree fell momentarily, and I stared at the tree, then my tail, and finally to Cord. "Did I just… Do that?"

Cord nodded and made a gesture to follow again.

* * *

**12/28/19**

**10:00 am**

**?**

"Cord, where are we going?" I asked him.

"You'll find out soon enough." We continued walking down this weird path of concrete. But something stood out…

It was a plank of wood that was in the distance, acting like a sign. I started running toward it and stopped almost immediately when I could make out the letters. "No… Way."

On the wooden sign, it said this:

**Welcome to Weird Woods**

***Game File Saved***


	6. An Electrifying Fight

**Chapter 4: One "Electrifying" Fight**

**12/28/19**

**10:01 am**

**Weird Woods**

Getting inside Weird Woods was a lot easier than I thought. In the human world, you had to crawl under a wired gate-which I barely fit through it- just to get to the entrance of the forest. As for here, let's just say it was simpler to get inside.

The trees once again surrounded the two of us as the same layout three years ago was injected toward the scene. It was a nostalgia that I truly wanted to forget every single day of my life.

And yet, here we are.

"Cord, I really want an explanation of why we're here…" Cord payed attention to what I said and stopped in the middle of the pathway. He sat down on top of his tail and spoke to me.

"Manny let's face it. You don't have that much experience with being a Pokémon. So, I made the decision to come over here for a little training session. And due to the circumstances, we will never have a chance of doing this again."

…Circumstances?

Why do I have a bad feeling about this? "What do you mean by circumstances?"

"Well, how do I put it into words…" Cord started moving again while he was talking. "Let's say two Pokémon arrived here that wasn't either of us. The procedure for Weird Woods is that it literally checks each Pokémon's stats. The Pokémon whoever has the highest level will actually de-level to the other Pokémon's level."

"What the… That's impossible." I responded.

"I know. But that's Weird Woods for you."

With the conversation about the "weirdness of Weird Woods"-see what I did there- we both arrived in a grassy plain. "Don't tell me. This is-."

"The place I disappeared in the human world. Yeah." Cord moved toward the center of the field. "This is going to sound weird, but I want you to fight me."

Woah. Woah, whoa, whoa. You want me… To fight you… When I've never fought as a Pokémon my entire life?

"Relax, I'm going to go easy on you."

"I'm so fucked." I walked up toward Cord, and took a deep breath… I immediately swung my fist toward Cord. Cord dodged it ever so slightly and returned the punch.

I ended up flying very far to the ground. I looked at the area Cord hit me in and groaned, "This is going to be fun…"

"Manny, you left yourself open in that one. Try again."

I started thinking here. Obviously, hand to hand combat by itself is not going to work. And as far as I know, I have Quick Attack and Iron Tail as moves since I'm a Pokémon. So…

I hit the ground running. The tailwind once again appeared, and Quick Attack was officially being used. I'm pretty sure Cord knew what I was doing, but there was no backing out now.

The thing with Quick Attack is in that speed, attacks can theoretically become more powerful since the motion is quicker. With that, I was able to throw fast punches and kicks to Cord without wasting large amounts of stamina.

And yet, Cord still dodged every one of my attacks.

"I know you can do better than that, Manny!"

Right then and there, something weird happened. I tried to punch Cord on the head, but my fist suddenly opened.

What came out of it was an electric ball that immediately exploded between the two of us.

We were both sent flying-with Cord flying farther than me. Just before I hit the ground though, I stopped moving downward. I tried to do any type of movement, but I was frozen solid.

When I looked around the area, I noticed something weird and/or extraordinary.

Cord's eyes were glowing, and he was making a hand movement. I suddenly started floating toward Cord's area, when I realized what it was.

Cord was using Psychic.

Once I was close enough to Cord, he set me down right in front of me. "Well, I can't say I'm not surprised."

"What. Was. That."

I didn't really respond to that question. "Can we just… You know."

"Absolutely." We continued training after that.

* * *

**4:55 pm**

**Weird Woods**

_Stamina (noun)_

_The ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort._

This was something I didn't have.

After that weird fight with Cord, I ended up more exhausted than I felt since I've ever been here. So we took a few minutes to calm down from what happened and got back to work.

We did this every so often for the rest couple of hours until now. And in case you were wondering, yes, I didn't really stand a chance against Cord.

But at least I was trying.

"Ok, Manny," Cord said, "One more time, and we can go."

Finally! I started grinning straight at Cord's face, and as it turned out, he was grinning too. I took three steps back and got into ready position.

It was time to give it all I got.

I used Quick Attack as a start-up move to attack. Cord made a quick gesture and used Teleport to get a higher ground. Since his tail can float, he can stay in the air, making my situation harder.

I jumped high above the air to try to use Iron Tail when…

It happened again. My arm thrusted toward Cord, and my hand formed the same electric ball from earlier. But instead of it exploding between us, it actually hit Cord and sent him straight to the ground. I was speechless.

I dropped to the floor and waited for Cord to make his next move. But he just stood there.

"Something wrong?" I asked. He turned his attention toward the opposite direction.

"It's in the trees."

What came out of the trees, was… to simply put, weird. It was a Bisharp, but something felt off from it. Its supposedly golden axe was black and the blades from its arms was worn out. But this feature raised a lot of red flags:

Its eyes had a fire effect ranging from dark red to black.

"Cord… How fast can we get out of here?"

"I can't use Teleport without knowing where I'm going… Don't make any sudden movements." Cord reached for his bag and was able to grab it. He slowly opened the bag, and that's when the worst part happened.

The Bisharp started charging toward us.

"Cord!"

"I'm hurrying up, Manny!" He took out a green-ish orb and threw it to the ground.

And once again, I blacked out.

* * *

**Meanwhile:**

"Chris!"

An Eevee was walking down the forest Manny and Cord were in when she saw a glowing light in the distance.

She decided to follow that. It ultimately ended up leading her toward an empty field of grass. "…Where are you, Chris?" And that's when her eye caught something.

It was a Pikachu and an Alolan Raichu.

She went to further inspect the damage and noticed the scrapes and bruises the two of them had.

"Man, you two took a beating…"

She took out an Oran Berry and tried to give it to the Pikachu.

The Pikachu… Reluctantly swallowed it.

And it slowly opened its eyes…

***Game File Saved***

**A/N: So, I did not see me posting this chapter today. But here we are. **

**Now, who I wonder who is Chris...? ;)**


	7. Meeting Abby

**Chapter 5: Meeting Abby**

**12/28/19**

**5:00 pm**

**Plains**

"Ugh…" I groaned.

I was now paying the toll of the practice fights with Cord. On one hand, I got pretty good experience- with me also learning that move that I used on Cord twice. On the other hand, I became exhausted and badly bruised, with my adrenaline gone… Which begs the question.

How am I thinking right now?

"Hey…" I felt a nudge on my shoulder. "You awake?"

Huh? I slowly opened my eyes to see two ears. "What… What happened?" The ears moved more down and what I saw surprised and frightened me.

What came out was an Eevee's face.

"Hi there!"

'Please don't scream. Please don't scream. Please don't scream, Manny…'

I screamed.

Now that I think about it, the scream wasn't a "real" scream, because it would have woken up Cord. But it still was loud enough for the Eevee to jump back.

"Ahh! What's your problem?!"

"Sorry! Sorry. I-I get startled easily." I took a couple of breaths.

'It's just another Pokémon…'

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Did you wake me up?"

The Eevee nodded, "Yup. I had to use one of your friend's Oran Berries to wake you up. But I guess it's okay since there are multiple more berries in the bag." The Eevee looked at Cord. "Speaking of your friend, I think it's time to wake him up."

The Eevee grabbed another Oran Berry from Cord's bag and gave it to him. Cord bit into the Oran Berry, and soon he opened his eyes.

"You okay?" I asked Cord.

Cord placed his paw on his head, indicating he was having a headache. "Did-Did we get out of there in time?" I nodded. Cord sat up and looked at me weirdly. "That scratch on you says otherwise."

I looked down at my stomach, and as Cord stated there was a scratch across my entire belly. It wasn't a deep cut, so no bleeding occurred. Thank God. But it still painful to just look at it.

"How? I was behind you when you used... An Escape Orb?" Huh.

Guess the item Cord used just came out of me.

"Um, I'm going to need a full explanation of what's going on here..."

Cord looked at the Eevee and stared at her. "Who is she?" asked Cord while he stood up on his floating tail.

"My name's Abby. And you are..."

I decided to answer for the both of us. "I'm Manny, and the Raichu is Cord. Now as for an explanation... Who's hungry?"

* * *

**12/28/19**

**6:00pm**

**Plains**

"So, let me get this straight," Abby said eating her food, "You two were doing some training in a dungeon, when a weird looking Bisharp attacked the two of you. And you got out of there in time, even though Manny got a scratch across his belly… Are you sure it wasn't an alternate colored Bisharp?"

"I highly doubt that since the eyes flaring isn't in any Bisharp… And we're not crazy."

Wow. What a way to put it, Cord.

"Anything else?" Abby said looking at me. I apparently was being put on the spotlight now…

Should I…

_No, Manny. Right now, it's a very bad time to tell her about that._

…Right. "Nope, that's all."

Can I at least tell her about you being hu-.

_NO!_

Fine…

I looked down at my paws noticing a couple of sparks in both hands. Guess it was time to ask. "Now since that's covered, what the heck was that move back there?" Abby looked at me confused. "Okay, before that weird Bisharp appeared, I did I was able to form a yellow electric ball on my… paws twice. And I used one of them to hit Cord."

"That was a fluke, Manny."

'Well, you don't have to be a sore loser about it.'

"Well… Judging from the description you just gave me now; it sounds like you did Electro Ball."

Electro Ball? "That doesn't make any sense," I commented, "All Pikachu use Electro Ball by using its tail, not by using its paw."

"That's the only explanation I can offer. It just depends if you want to use it or not."

Cord sighed, "At this rate, I'll never get back to Golden Coast…"

I stared at Cord. "Golden Coast? What's that?"

"Have you've been living under a rock, Manny?" Abby started laughing. "The Golden Coast is the most famous area in the entire continent! It's where most of all Pokémon go to find job opportunities, housing, etcetera."

Cord started digging from his bag to pull out a map.

"Manny, the reason why we both went into Charred Chambers was to get an item that was only exclusive to there. That was why I got the Reviver Orb." Cord pointed to an empty piece of grass in the northwest part of the map. "I believe this is where we are currently. Our plan was to get back to Misty Mountain, get a few resources from there, and start heading toward the Golden Coast."

"Did you just say Misty Mountain? That's where I'm heading!"

Both me and Cord turned out attention to Abby. "Really? How come?"

"Well… I don't know if you heard me yelling nearby before you two woke up, but I'm looking for someone."

"Who?" Cord said.

"I'm looking for an Eevee named Chris because… He's my big brother."

I looked at Cord and Cord looked back. 'She's not lying, right?'

_No, she is not._

I took a deep sigh and turned back to Abby. "You want to come with us, Abby?"

Abby was, to put it simply, shocked. "Why would you two want me to come with you? I've only met you for about… thirty minutes."

"Let's be honest, Misty Mountain is hard dungeon to get through by yourself. And it's the least we could do for you reviving both of us."

"...Alright!" Abby stood up. "Can we start heading over there soon?!"

Cord got a smile in his face, and simply said, "Absolutely."

With that, we decided to start heading over toward Misty Mountain after finishing dinner. It got me thinking: Why did Cord mention "us" instead of his plan since I arrived two days ago?

The answer for that didn't came to me until we were nearby the mountain.

For the first time in three years, Cord covered my back.

***Game File Saved***


	8. First Experiences are Painful

**Chapter 6: First Experiences are Painful**

**12/28/19**

**7:00 pm**

**Outside of Misty Mountain**

Me, Cord, and Abby were walking down the forest leading up to Misty Mountain when I just stopped out of nowhere. I had to admit, the view looking up from the mountain was a lot more surprising than what I originally thought it would look like. I would probably have to get used to this, since Cord's map showed there were more mountains here around this continent.

"Manny, you coming?" Cord looked back at me.

I shook my head out of concentration, and responded, "Yeah, I'm coming!" I ran toward Abby and Cord and followed along once again...

'Cord we need to talk via telepathy because it's about telepathy.'

No one talked for a couple of moments while getting ever so closer to the mountain. The window of opportunity was closing... 'Come on, Cord. Respond!'

_Did you call?_

I took a sigh of relief... 'Remember when you heard shouting in the waterfall earlier today?'

_ Yeah... Someone did speak of you using telepathy, didn't they?_

'Yup. Here's the thing though. The voice that spoke to me sounded like a female, almost like Abby's. But she can't do telepathy since she's a Normal type...'

_Hmm... I wonder who would do that?_

"Hey Cord! Manny!" Abby looked back at the two of us. "Misty Mountain is just up ahead!" She started running toward the mountain. "Last one there is a rotten Exeggcute!"

We both stopped to look at each other. "I'm not backing down from a challenge, Manny," Cord said grinning.

Both of us started running almost immediately after that. One thing's for sure, though.

I'm never going to use Pokémon puns the same way ever again.

* * *

**7:10 pm**

**Misty Mountain**

"Manny, you are a cheater."

"Am not!" I stared at Abby with my arms folded.

"Manny, you used Quick Attack to get over here faster. That's considered cheating."

"I'm sorry, it's not my fault that I'm not used to this body yet... But fine, I guess you win Cord."

"...What do you mean by 'not used to this body'?"

...Crap. "We'll explain later," Cord said.

Abby started looking at me in different directions, ranging from the top of my head to behind me looking at my tail. I had sweat coming out of me because of nerves…

That and the realization that she could have found out my secret.

"Abby, Manny is sweating like hell right now. Can you please stop doing that so we can do the mission?" Cord looked at her with a stern face.

"…Fine," Abby said groaning, "But I'm only doing that because Chris is somewhere around here."

**Objective:**

**Find Chris!**

"Wait, why would Chris be here, of all places?" I said while we all started walking.

"Well…" Abby looked down thinking. "We were trying to head back into civilization, when we just ran out of supplies to continue further. I knew should have planned beforehand."

"Where would you even go that would need that many supplies to be used?" Cord glanced at Abby.

"That is none of your business… Anyway, we took a break in a fruit-bearing tree, and lo and behold, Misty Mountain was in the viewing distance. Chris wanted to do this himself, but I didn't _want_ him to go there. We both went to sleep, and when I woke up, he was gone."

"Wait, wait, wait," Cord stopped to look at the two of us-especially at Abby, "Why didn't you want Chris to go through this dungeon by himself? He should be more _experienced_ than you since he is older."

"Well here's the thing-." She immediately raised her head and turned around to fire a dark ball behind her. An explosion went in the distance, hitting something unknowing toward me and Cord. In the distance, a Geodude laid on the floor, dazed. Right then and there, I realized what just happened.

Abby used Shadow Ball.

"What the heck? How did you do that?!"

"These ears can any enemies in a distance-ahead or behind. So, your welcome."

Cord sighed. "Never mind that. Can you answer the question I asked?"

"Right, sorry… How do I put this to words?" I was expecting something like _This dungeon would be extremely hard for the both of us_, _it would be too risky to go there without supplies_, and etcetera.

But I didn't expect this:

"…Chris has never been in a mystery dungeon before."

…

"What!?"

Me and Cord quickly looked at each other and gave our attention back into Abby. "How is that even possible?"

"Well, Chris got an injury that paralyzed his lower body. And it was a lot worse than our family ever expected."

I sighed. He must have just gotten cured of the paralysis and wanted to go explore this continent... This was going to be harder than I initially thought.

We continued climbing Misty Mountain while also fighting any enemies that stood in our way. Also, Cord was finding items that would be useful for later occurrences.

Eventually, we were close to the peak of the mountain with still no sight of Chris. "Well we got the supplies for our trip to the Golden Coast. And if Chris isn't in these last few floors, I don't know where he would be."

Abby started to droop her head down with a gloomy face. I-for some weird reason- decided to put my paw over her back. "Look…" I said pausing myself for a moment, "I promise Chris will be here. We've just got to keep on looking. And if he isn't here, then we just got to keep on looking. Because right now, it's the only thing we can do."

Abby's frown turned into a smile, but it wasn't by much. At this point, at had to agree with Cord. If Chris isn't in these floors, I wouldn't have a clue to where we could we find him.

'I'm just hoping we can have one clue into finding him…'

"ROAR!"

The three of us immediately looked up, which the direction of the sound came from. I put my head back down to see other Pokémon-the ones supposed to be hostile- looking up as well. It looks like the entire floor is looking up.

If it's not the entire floor…

Then the entire dungeon is hearing this sound.

"CHRIS!" Abby started running in the direction of the stairs. It made her earlier run in the race seem like nothing.

So, we had no choice but to follow suit.

* * *

**8:00 pm**

**Misty Mountain 19F (Stairs)**

"Abby!" I yelled at her from the stairs, "The next time you run without warning, please tell us ahead!"

She finally stopped in the ending of the stairs, leading up to the next floor. Meanwhile, me and-somehow- Cord got immensely exhausted from running three straight floors trying to chase down Abby. That may not seem like much, but if you look at the stairs separating each floor-which were a lot longer than I imagined- you probably would even get exhausted from that.

Maybe even collapse.

Anyway, after we finished climbing the stairs, I started laying down in the ground out of complete exhaustion. "What. The. Hell?" I said, panting.

"Abby, why did you run like that?!" Cord yelled looking at her. I, too, turned my head in her direction to hear a response.

"…Well, I guess I should start with this. I was holding back in the race earlier. Also, the voice we heard earlier… That was Chris' voice."

"How do you know that?" Cord asked.

"You think I wouldn't know my brother's voice like the back of my paw? I know it's him."

"…She does have a point."

Cord stared at me when I made the statement. Remember when I figured out who you were in the dream?

…

"Fine," Cord sighed, "But where would he be in this floor?"

"…HEY!"

All of us turned to the direction-North-of the voice. What was right in front of us surprised all of us:

There was an Eevee covered in silver fur.

"Chris?!" Abby shouted.

"Wait, Chris is a shiny Eevee?" I asked her.

"'Shiny?' If you mean alternate colored, yes."

What… Oh, right. Shiny isn't a term here.

"…That's not Chris."

Me and Abby turned our heads to Cord. "Excuse me?"

"Look at the eyes."

When we looked at the Eevee closer, we realized something was completely off.

Its eyes had a flame trail.

"Oh, no."

"Why does Chris have… those eyes?" Abby tilted her head.

The Eevee put his paw out and looked at all of us with a smirk. Its paw suddenly darkened and his claws extended… Oh no.

He's using Shadow Claw.

"GET OUT THE WAY!"

The Eevee charged toward all three of us twice as fast as a normal Eevee would. Me and Cord jumped-well technically Cord hovered- our way out of Chris' route. Meanwhile, Abby anticipated this and got into a ready stance… And blocked the shot by using... I think it's called Protect.

Anyway, she pushed Chris back, and I knew it was ether my or Cord's time to make a move. Cord was charging energy for some reason across from me, so I ran toward him. A couple of swings of Iron Tail toward him didn't do much as he blocked all of them.

And he launched me toward the air using Shadow Ball. And Cord was still charging in the exact same spot.

"Cord! What are you doing?"

"You feel it, right?"

…What? "Feel what?"

"The energy coming out of Chris!"

I looked at him-being still in the same form. "I don't feel anything!"

Cord sighed, "Right you haven't learned about that yet… Listen, Chris' energy is higher than I originally thought he was. His power is pretty high, and I'm afraid it's not going to stop anytime soon."

I landed on my feet with me and Abby looking at Cord. "What's your point?"

"My point is, I'm going to end this with one shot before he overpowers the three of us combined. I'm charging up my attack now, so you two need to stall until I tell you it's ready."

Me and Abby both looked at each other. We've only known each other for about three hours, and we've had more arguments than actual opportunities to work together. And even then, we did things separately. "You know, if we do this… Welcome to the team."

To be honest, I don't know why I said this, only it was for a real reason.

Abby smiled and only said three words.

"Let's do this."

We both take off-with Abby being slightly faster than me- and we both ended up hitting Chris at the same time.

A flurry of Iron Tail, punches, kicks, and Bite-provided by Abby- pushes Chris back far enough. As a final move, me and Abby jump back to fire a projectile. Abby starts charges up her Shadow Ball…

Meanwhile, Electro Ball gets formed somehow out of my hand, and it was about the size of a baseball-half from an actual Electro Ball… These legs are short, but it's going to have to do.

For some reason, I started to cover my right paw-that has the Electro Ball- with my left paw, then moving toward my right shoulder. "Almost ready, Abby?" She nodded, confused of what I was about to do. "Good. Let's do this."

Okay, I'm going to have to explain this first. Before I ever turned in to a Pokémon, I used to be a pitcher in a baseball team from a local league in Jersey City. I somehow threw faster than most of all pitchers, so I was known for my fastball throwing. Unfortunately, I got injured in my upper arm, ending my season short. Now with my arm fully healed, I could give it everything I got.

I move both my arms down toward my hip area and took a deep breath. "Punch it."

Right there, I start to do my windup by raising my left leg. Once it's at the most comfortable position, my left arm moves ahead first to get enough power for my other arm. When I moved my right arm, my left leg landed directing the Electro Ball, and threw the Electro Ball at the same time Abby fired her Shadow Ball.

It wasn't the hardest I've thrown, but nonetheless it caused an immense explosion when it collided with Chris and Abby's Shadow Ball.

"Manny, what the hell was that?"

…Damn it. I did something that was hinting toward my humanity. "That's another explanation I'll talk about later."

"Guys," Cord said, "it's ready!"

We ran toward him and Cord gave me an orb from his Treasure Bag. "This activates when I use my attack… I will faint after this attack is used, so listen up. When this attack is over, take me and Chris to the next floor. That's the peak of this mountain. There's going to be a cabin, where you all can stay until both of us revive. Got it?"

"Ok?" I lost him when he said _floor_.

Cord used teleport to get right next to Chris to unleash his move.

"Special Move: Final Explosion!" Cord's storage cheeks turned from red to white and a huge ball ingulfed him and Chris. Right then, an explosion happened about five times larger than me and Abby's explosion moments ago.

The shockwave came right toward us as we braced for impact…

We were sent flying anyway.

We both hit the wall in the room, and I blacked out…

…

…

Or. So I thought.

***Game File Saved***

**A/N: Hopefully, someone got the Dragon Ball reference.**

**I have a couple of announcements to make! It took a while to make this chapter, because I was making sure of another thing: I now know how many chapters this story will have-about 20. I'm only going to say Chapter 13 is going to be a very special chapter, but that's it. Also, Spring Break is about to start next week, so I can focus on writing this book. I'll make sure to finish Chapter 7 by the end of March.**


	9. New Members!

**Chapter 7: New Members!**

**12/28/19**

**8:20 pm**

**Misty Mountain 19F**

'…How am I… alive?'

Cord's Final Explosion sent a shockwave towards me and Abby and we both hit the wall at about fifty miles an hour. So, unless I'm dreaming that I'm awake, I somehow survived that attack.

'But how?'

I opened my eyes to find myself sitting up with my head right on top of the rocky wall I took damage from a few moments ago. Looking around with my eyes, I see Abby right next to me, fainted. In the distance, was Cord and Chris-both fainted- laying down, right next to each other.

I guess the best thing about this was that Chris doesn't have the fire effect in his eyes anymore.

I ran toward Cord's Treasure Bag and grabbed a Reviver Seed from there. There was only one left in the bag, and Cord said he "wanted to be carried to the next floor." I didn't go to him anyway.

I went to Abby.

"Now… How do I do this?"

'Reviver Seeds doesn't have an effect if a Pokémon eats it-and probably tastes bitter.' I decided to place the seed in Abby's forehead. Sure enough, the seed lit like a light.

A couple of moments later, the seed stopped glowing. "Abby, are you awake?"

…

"Ugh…"

Abby slowly opened her eyes to look at me right in front of her.

"What-What happened?"

"Long story short, Cord did his explosion. We both got knock back to this wall, knocking you out. And I somehow survived and gave a Reviver Seed to you… I'm still wondering about how I survived though."

"Didn't you have an orb on your hand?"

I looked around my area, to find no orb anywhere. 'If Cord said the orb would be activated after he did his move, then…'

"Oh, Cord gave me the Reviver Orb we grabbed in Charred Chambers."

That makes a lot more sense now.

I grabbed Cord's bag and raced toward Cord and Chris. "Is Chris… Back to normal?"

"Well…" I said looking right at his head, which looked creepy since his eyes were open. "His eyes don't have a fire effect, so that's a start."

Abby took a sigh of relief. "So… Cord wanted us to carry him and Chris here to the next floor? How are we going to do that."

'Let's see. Alolan Raichu weigh about 45 to 50 pounds…'

"I'll carry Cord."

Abby immediately moved her head towards me. "Manny! You-You can't carry Cord by yourself! At least let me do it."

"No chance. You take your brother. It's only fair."

"Does that mean you two are brothers?"

I walked up to Cord and took a deep breath. "Yes and no."

My paws found a good enough grip to lift Cord up.

Deep breaths now…

With all my weight spread around me, I lifted Cord up.

Honestly, I have no idea how I ever did that.

"Holy! How?!"

"Let's just say I lifted things like this before," I said chuckling.

I start to walk towards the stairs-which coincidently were right behind us, when Abby approached me. She was carrying Chris around her back, which I guess was simpler, considering Eevee's weigh about 15 pounds. "You sure about carrying Cord up these stairs?"

"Trust me, I'll be fine."

I got my first look at the stairs to the peak… And they were twice as long as the regular stairs we took to get here in the first place.

"Shit." I sighed. Maybe this was a bad idea. "Ladies first?"

Abby smiled and started climbing the stairs.

Meanwhile, I took a deep breath and started to slowly make my way up.

…

"So. Are you finally going to tell me about that phrase you said earlier?"

'It's not my fault that I'm not used to this body yet' echoes in my mind.

…Damn it. I was planning for this conversation to be in the next floor so I could come up with a good excuse. But I guess I'll have to do it now.

"Well how do I say it… I evolved from a Pichu a few days ago."

"…Really? Congratulations!"

I've got to say, that lie was perhaps the best lie I've ever told someone.

"Thanks. And I've been having some training sessions with Cord after that… happened." I say, panting. We were halfway from the peak floor, and I am starting to get exhausted from carrying Cord. It felt like he gained twice as many pounds from me carrying him.

"…What about that thing you did with your Electro Ball?"

I groaned inside my head. Now I wished I didn't do that pitching throw earlier. "Let's see… I learned Electro Ball this morning, and it always formed in my hand, and not in my tail. So, I had a weird idea. What if I created power from thrusting my arm and threw the Electro Ball at my target? It would help create velocity and-."

"Create more damage because of the impact."

"Exactly! It took me a while to get a handle on that idea, since I had to aim from a distance. But this was the first time it worked without doing a test."

I honestly never knew I would talk about science with a Pokémon.

"We're almost there, Manny! Just a couple of steps!"

'Ten…More…Steps…'

* * *

**8:30 pm**

**Misty Mountain (Peak)**

A loud thud was made on the 20th and final floor of Misty Mountain. It didn't really startle anyone here, because three other Pokémon were here-with two of them being fainted.

The Pokémon that made that noise was me, as I laid down on the gravel floor with Cord still on top of me.

"Manny, are you okay?" Abby looked at me while placing Chris on the floor.

"Depends. Why did you convince me to carry Cord in the first place?"

Abby went toward the side of me and pushed Cord off my back. With my airway finally fully open again, I got the taste of the limited air here because of the altitude here. "Well, you convinced yourself, and I couldn't stop you. Besides, you did a pretty nice job carrying him until now."

I thanked her and looked ahead of us. There was the cabin Cord was talking about. "It's a… small cabin," I said.

"Yeah but if cabin is recommended by Cord…" Abby said, while moving Chris. She opened the door and peeked inside. "Cord probably spent time in it."

Abby went inside the cabin with Chris inside and closed the door. I went behind Cord and started to push him toward the cabin. The door opened when I finally got there, and Cord was right in front of Abby when I entered.

"What the…" I said amazed.

The cabin was about twice as the room appeared in the outside. A couple of chairs and couches surrounded a brightly lit fireplace. Maybe with the adding of a kitchen and a bed, this would look like an actual house. "How's it even possible!?"

"Well, it's the work of a Psychic type." Abby moved towards a couch across the room. "I guess Cord can be placed here."

Chris was in a comfy chair, so I assumed the couch was for him because of his size. I pushed Cord to the spot and with the help of Abby, lifted him toward the couch. "Guess we're going to have to wait now."

"I don't know about you," Abby looked at me, "But I'm going to sleep. Goodnight."

She went toward another couch, took one side, and went to sleep.

Sigh… I was finally alone. I got to say, this was probably-no- is the greatest two days of my life. I've finally got the chance to see Cord again after three years. I've somehow solved the case that for some reason still hasn't become cold yet. And along the way, I've met two real life Pokémon.

But I guess there are some questions still in the air. What made Chris attack the three of us like that? Was that related with the Bisharp earlier this afternoon? And who would know about my humanity? It was too much to ask myself, so I did the best option at the time:

I slept on it.

* * *

**12/29/19**

**6:00 am**

**Misty Mountain (Peak: Cabin)**

"…Manny."

I heard a whisper coming from on top of me. I couldn't recognize the voice in front of me right now but whoever it was…

Their breath stinks.

Anyway, I opened my eyes and found myself looking at a silver furred Eevee. "Chris! You're-."

"Shh!" Chris interrupted me. "I wouldn't do that if you look at who's next to you."

Who's next to me? What the heck does that mean? I slightly tilted my head…

And Abby was right next to me cuddling me while sleeping… Wait, what?!

I screamed silently. 'How did this even happen? I slept on the opposite side of the couch and faced the opposite direction.'

"Did you do this?!" I asked Chris.

"What? No! I woke up to see you two like that."

I sighed. "Ok, I'm going to try to move out very slowly…" Chris held Abby's arms, which were on top of me, so I was able to scooch down of the couch. Sweat was coming down on me, because I felt that I was going to place one of my body parts accidently on somewhere I shouldn't be touching.

Let's not talk about that.

After what felt like an eternity, I finally got my head out of Abby's body, and took a sigh of relief. "Thank God."

"Don't you mean Arceus?"

I looked at Chris instantly. "Oh, yeah! That's what I meant!" I said while grinning.

Chris tilted his head completely confused. "Right…"

I laid myself on the cushion for my back doing a big groan in the process. Fortunately, it didn't wake up Abby or Cord, who was still laying down in the other couch. "I wonder why Cord hasn't-. Whoa!"

The couch fell from its back, hitting the floor. I landed softly on a cushion, but Abby rolled off the couch and hit a nearby table. To our surprise, Abby still didn't wake up.

I stood up. "Man, your sister is a really deep sleeper."

She woke up immediately after I said that.

"What the? What happened here?!"

"You were sleeping next to Manny." Chris responded.

"Dude!" I looked at Chris, "Really?!"

"You do realize that was for a reason, right?" Me and Chris turned our attention toward Abby. "Wait, you don't remember it, Manny?"

"Remember what?"

"I woke up in the middle of the night to see you mumbling something about Cord. With your body language and the jittering you were sometimes making, it looked like you were having a nightmare. So I woke you up, and I spent the rest of the night sleeping right next to you."

I was shocked with that exact response. "Yeah, but how come I don't remember any of that?"

"Who knows why?" Chris asked. "I'm just wondering if that was the-."

"Wait," Abby interrupted. "Why is Cord still not awake?"

All of us looked at Cord, who was still somehow sleeping. Either he's a deep sleeper, or he's doing it on purpose. We all went to him, and I jumped on the couch. Placing one of my fingers just under on his tiny nose, I felt no air coming in or out of his nose.

"Hmm, he's not breathing. I think something-…Achoo!" My electric-stored cheeks finally got into the action, as they shot two separate sparks of electricity. In the end of the firing, they combined, and started to shock Cord. Abby and Chris were covering their eyes, while Cord… Was taking it in?

For some reason, instead of the electricity going around his body to shock the hell out of him, it was going straight into his chest powering his energy. I stopped a few moments later to see Cord open his eyes, gasping for air. "It worked!" Cord said, sitting up.

"What worked?" Chris asked.

"First off, it's nice to meet you Chris, and hopefully you won't try to kill us like you did last night. Anyway, I was hoping Manny was going to finally get that range attack he's been holding back for so long, so I can use it for my advantage. I guess you could say since I'm an Electric type, I don't take that much damage from the attack, and since I'm a Psychic type I can manipulate that to make energy towards my body."

That's… A very smart move. "What range attack are you talking about, though?" I asked him.

Cord smirked, "Thunderbolt."

I guess you can say I was _shocked_ when I said that… No? Damn it.

"How do you know that?"

"Well, it was a range attack from your cheeks, and it got me up and ready to move in a few moments. If it was Thundershock, it probably would have taken twice as the time as Thunderbolt did. Now since that's taken care of, what are we going to do with you two?"

Me and Cord looked at Abby and Chris. "I have an idea," Abby responded, "What if we join you two to the trip towards the Golden Coast since we all are going there anyway. But I ask for one thing in return: all four of us make an exploration team in the nearby future.

Cord looked at me first. "I think that's a great idea."

"That makes three of us."

Me, Abby, and Cord finally looked at Chris. "What are you looking at me for? All of you already said yes!"

We all had a laughing moment after that. "Okay you all, let's get out of here."

"Wait, what about this mess?" I asked. The couch was still on its back and the fireplace was roaring, just getting close to start a fire.

"I don't think it matters. I always come here every so often so I can clean it up then."

Cord grabbed all three of us and used Teleport.

* * *

**Meanwhile:**

A shadow appeared at the peak of Misty Mountain. There was nothing that made the shadow, only that it was there. A few moments later, the shadow rose from the gravel and took a form of a Pokémon.

It was a Bisharp.

"Looks like the four of them left, sir."

Another shadow formed but stayed in the ground instead of taking form. "Indeed, they did, Bisharp… It seems like these other three Pokémon are more resilient than I thought."

"Yes… You even possessed that human to try and stop them, and yet they defeated him in a matter of minutes."

The shadow glances at the Bisharp. "That Pikachu of theirs… You could say he's peculiar… I'm going to investigate this."

"What about the cabin right here?"

The shadow looked at the Bisharp, and Bisharp looked at the shadow.

"Destroy it." The shadow disappeared.

"Yes, sir." The Bisharp decided to use X-Scissor and aimed it right at the cabin. When it hit, the only occurrence happened.

The cabin exploded.

"Task complete."

The Bisharp decided to deform and disappear. Leaving no trace of anything, but a burned down and broken apart cabin.

***Game File Saved***

**A/N: Happy April Fools everyone and hope you guys are having a good time in quarantine! :)**


	10. Type Disadvantages Suck

**Chapter 8: Type Disadvantages Suck**

**12/29/19**

**9:30 am**

**Idle River**

"Wait, so I used Shadow Claw against you? I never learned Shadow Claw before."

"Well I don't know how you did it, but somehow you did it out of pure instinct."

After Cord teleported us down of Misty Mountain, all four of us went toward Idle River and followed the current west. Cord said that once we see a lake in the end of Idle River, we would nearby the Golden Coast. During our walk toward the lake, Chris asked me what happened during my, Abby and Cord's fight against him because he doesn't remember anything about it.

I decided to tell him about it.

"After that me and your sister went to attack you," I said truthfully, "I honestly believe I gave it all I got in that attack with Abby."

"You should have seen Manny's Electro Ball throw! It was unlike anything I've seen before."

I chuckled. 'If you only knew…'

"Anyway," I said turning around, "Cord was-." I stopped myself to stare at Cord. The last time I saw him, he started to examine his Treasure Bag which I knew was almost completely full.

He was still looking at it now.

"Cord. Cord!"

Cord finally looked up from his bag. "What?" he simply said.

At this point, Abby and Chris stopped to look at me and Cord doing a stare down. "You've been looking inside that Treasure Bag of yours for the past ten minutes. What the heck are you doing?"

"I'm doing inventory, Manny… And it seems we're missing an item here."

"Really... If you were wondering about the Reviver Seed, I used that on Abby back in Misty Mountain."

"Manny, I know you used the Reviver Seed yesterday. In fact, I wanted you to use it. But I'm talking about another item we're missing."

"Wait, what?" I acted surprised. "What item are we missing then?"

Cord looked back in his Treasure Bag. "Well, I have the majority of items for certain situations we could encounter when you, I, and the two Eevee become an official exploration team. But in the case we face a Pokémon like Chris once was, we're going to need a Blast Seed in our disposal."

'…Wait. Did you say what I thought you said?'

Cord smirked. _Yup._

"You mean to say that the item that makes you breathe fire after eating it is here, right now?!"

Cord cleared his throat.

"What?" I turned around to see Abby and Chris stare at me.

Oh.

"I completely forgot about what a Blast Seed was. Don't judge me!"

_That was a terrible save._

"Shut up."

Me and Cord caught up with Abby and Chris to see the two of them looking at both of us. "Are you two done?" Abby said, staring at me. I simply nodded. Abby turned her smile to a smile. "Good. And I think that lake Cord was talking about is just ahead!"

We raced along the current to have a good view of the lake ahead of us. Cord stopped all three of us. "This. Is Idle Lake."

My entire body went into shock once I saw the lake. "This lake looks like Upper Bay!" The statement I made an echo in the entire area, startling some Flying type Pokémon as they flew off the distance.

"Upper Bay? Where's that?" Chris looked at me.

"Upper Bay is a bay area that Manny and I used to live nearby. But the last time I saw that was about three years ago."

"I saw it the other day, but never mind. Where are we going to get a Blast Seed, though?"

Cord pointed at Idle Lake. "That's where we're getting it."

I squinted to the distance but found nothing. "What are you talking about? There's nothing in the distance.

"Manny, you are blind." Cord used Psychic and lifted me in the air. He stopped when I passed a tree's height, which made a large view to Idle Lake.

"W-What are you doing?!"

Cord looked at me. "Look at the lake now!" He shouted.

I decided to follow Cord's instruction, as it probably was the only way I would get back down unharmed. The view somehow made me have a better view towards the middle of the lake where something was there…

Instead of the lake being full of water, there was an island in the smack middle of Idle Lake.

"What? How is there an island in the lake?!"

Cord placed me down at the ground, and I took a sigh of relief. "I've been trying to avoid this mystery dungeon for a while, but I guess there's no choice to come here."

"Wait, why have you've been avoiding this dungeon for a while?"

"You don't know about what's here?" Chris asked me.

I shook my head.

"Well," Abby said looking at me, "this mystery dungeon is called Idle Island. It's a special dungeon, because it houses two different types here."

Cord moved closer to me and did a frown. "The types that are here are Water types and…" Cord took a deep breath.

"Ground types."

* * *

**10:00 am**

**Idle Island B1F**

_Advantage (noun)_

_A condition or circumstance that puts one in a favorable or superior position._

I hate Ground types with a passion.

The first time I started hating them was during the Ground type Grand Trial in Pokémon Sun and Moon. I barely won that battle because I decided to stack up on Revives and Max Revives before the battle.

And with Electric types having no effect to Ground types, I might hate them even more after this is over… I think I should pull back into reality.

**Objective:**

**Find a Blast Seed!**

Cord used Teleported us toward Idle Island a few moments ago, and no one talked when we entered the mystery dungeon.

"Manny, just try not to think of that." I turned my head to look at Cord-who was right next to me.

'Cord I want to ask-.'

_Don't. Look, I'm sorry I didn't mention it earlier, but if you get damage, this could be a pretty painful experience for you… I'm going to change the subject now._

"So Manny," Cord looked at me, "what did you mean by 'I honestly believe I gave it all I got in that attack with Abby' earlier?"

"So you were listening!" Chris interrupted.

"Yes, I was listening, Chris. But can you answer the question, Manny?"

I thought to myself for a minute. Cord mentioned about measuring power just by feeling it, and I never got a chance to try it myself. "I might have been lying because I never got a chance to measure my own power… How do you do that anyway?"

Cord sighed. "Well, some types, like Electric, Fighting, and Psychic, have an instinct ability called Power Gauging. Basically, if you focus on a Pokémon or a certain area, you can identify Pokémon from a distance and/or find their power level."

"Okay, let me give it a try…" I closed my eyes while walking-which is never recommended- and turned my head to my left. Two dim lights appeared where Abby and Chris were walking along with me, and I got startled. "Ahh!" I said opening my eyes, "What was that?"

"Well, you sure are a quick learner!" Cord said, chuckling. "How about in the direction ahead of us?"

I closed my eyes walking down again, and it was just completely dark. "Nothing. Absolutely-. Wait, I have something!"

"Wait, what? What is it?!" Chris started to look at me out of curiosity.

"I don't know. It's approaching us, so we'll find out soon enough."

"Well," Cord said confidently, "whatever it is we'll be-. Oh shit!"

My eyes were still shut, but I could somehow "feel" that Cord, Chris, and Abby stopped moving. "What's wrong? Why did everyone-."

My face suddenly hit something, and after losing my balance I fell toward the sandy floor. "Ouch! What was-."

"Shut up, Manny… I need you to slowly back away toward us."

'What the heck does that mean!?' I slowly opened my eyes to be looking at a wild Pokémon.

But it wasn't any Pokémon.

It was a Gastrodon, a Water and-dare I say it-Ground type.

My entire body completely ignored what Cord said and immediately ran back toward the three of them.

Chris sighed, "So much for that." Chris turned around in the other direction and used his two hind legs to launch dirt at the Gastrodon. It cringed and didn't notice that Chris turned around and immediately charged toward it. The Gastrodon was sent flying in the air.

Me and Cord were stunned. Abby… was completely excited. "Nice job! The old Sand Attack, Headbutt combo still works."

I-Um…

I'm not going there.

"Okay everyone," Cord stated, "let's move along."

We followed that instruction and continued our way down the floors of Idle Island. Fortunately, we haven't seen any Ground type Pokémon since that Gastrodon appeared out of nowhere. I hope this doesn't jinx it, but…

I hope I can get out of here without taking damage from a Ground type!

**10:15 am**

**Idle Island B5F**

"Alright everyone!" Abby shouted at everyone sounding excited. "Last floor!"

Meanwhile, a large groan came from me, Cord, and Chris almost simultaneously. All three of us were exhausted from this dungeon, because of a heat wave was occurring right now. The heat wave we all encountered started in the third floor and hasn't stopped since. "How much longer…" I managed to squeak out of my raspy voice.

"We should be… close by…" Cord said panting.

Man, I hope Cord's right.

All four of us entered a brightly lit room with a sound echoing throughout the walls. It was water, as it was gushing down at a rapid pace toward the floor, making a pool for half of the room. Due to the water creating steam because of the heat, the temperature was relatively warm. To make things better, two items were laying on the floor.

With one of those items being a Blast Seed.

"Alright!" Chris yelled, "We can get out of here now!" We all cheered and approached the two items. I stopped myself for a second.

'This seems perfect.'

"Too perfect… Wait, guys!" I stopped everyone from moving and they started to look at me while I went in between the two items. "I think something's wrong."

"Yeah. You're stopping us from getting out of here."

"No, not that. There's something else, but I can't put my-."

A big splash came in the middle of my sentence and my back got completely wet.

"Okay, that might have been what was wrong."

"…Manny. Get out of the way now."

What? What's that supposed to… "Someone's behind me, isn't there?"

All three of them nodded slightly. I took a deep breath and turned my head around. My eyes couldn't believe it. It was a Swampert looking straight at me. But one thing about it made my heart skip a beat.

Its eyes were having the fire effect, just like Chris and the Bisharp were having yesterday.

I turned my head back into Cord, Chris and Abby.

…

"Fuck."

I'm going to have to update the objective now.

**Objective Updated:**

**Survive**

Yeah... That's better.

***Game File Saved***


	11. Cord's True Backstory

**Chapter 9: Cord's True Backstory**

**12/29/19**

**10:17 am**

**Idle Island B5F**

I have a question for everyone looking at this. If you were in the same position I was-you're a Pikachu, three Pokémon ahead of you are your teammates, and there's a fucking Swampert right behind you that probably wants to kill you-out of these choices, which one would you do?

Would you:

A: Jump high enough for Abby, Cord, and Chris to make a move to hit Swampert, and use Quick Attack to hit Swampert's head.

B: Turn around and use Iron Tail to force Swampert into the water.

C: Grab the Blast Seed and use it on Swampert; or.

D: Play dead.

I'll let you choose your answer for a few moments starting right… now.

…

Done? Okay, I'm… I'm going to admit this was a trick question. I didn't do any of these choices-but if I had the chance to do it again, I would do option A. What I did was probably stupider than playing dead.

I screamed like a little girl, grabbed both items, and raced toward my teammates.

It might have been a good idea at the time, but when I realized the Swampert completely ignored the screaming I was doing… I felt like I was about to die. The Swampert opened its mouth to fire Mud Shot straight at me.

I braced myself for the worse to happen. Suddenly, Chris jumped right in front of harm's way and used Protect to block almost all his shots. I said "almost" because one Mud Shot deflected from Protect and struck the wall.

That made a piece of rock completely split apart and start falling down the left side of the room- which Abby was standing right on that side. "Oh, crap. Abby!" I dropped everything ran right over there.

She looked at me, "What?"

"Sorry about this." I jumped in the air and used Iron Tail to smack Abby out of the way. After some quick thinking, I decided to chop all the rocks aiming for my body using Iron Tail. The last one was an exceptionally large rock that was about three times my size.

I immediately raised my arm and I focused all my energy to make an Electro Ball. A normal sized one formed and I shoved the Electro Ball toward the rock, which disfigured soon after.

Meanwhile, when Abby was launched from my Iron Tail, her trajectory was leading toward the Swampert in the distance. She took advantage of the situation currently and used Bite on Swampert's side. Chris joined in the fray by launching a few Shadow Balls of his own at it, but it didn't do much. And Cord was coming over toward me.

_Manny…_

Oh, great. It's the female voice from yesterday. 'Hello… Whoever you are.'

_Nice to see you again, Manny. Seems like you're in what your kind call a pickle._

"Okay, can I at least ask who you are because you somehow know who I am without me revealing anything."

Cord got here just after I made that statement. "Manny, what was that statement-." I placed one finger in front of Cord's face, shutting him up.

"Continue," I said still using the one finger on Cord.

_Well, I can offer a little advice with your situation. You see that other item next to the Blast Seed?_

I tilted my body to see the item she was talking about. The item looked like a ring with white coating on the outside part. "Yeah, I see it. Why?"

_Well, that item is called Ring Target… Talk later._

"Wait, don't go!" I yelled. That made everyone-including the Swampert-look at me. The Swampert looked back at Abby and Chris and thrusted both arms to hit Abby and Chris at the same time. They were fortunately both sent flying in our direction, so Cord was able to use Psychic to stop them from hitting the ground too hard.

Cord looked at me. "What exactly happened to you?"

"That voice from yesterday… It came back. And she told me the item right next to the Blast Seed is a Ring Target."

"Ring Target?!" Cord immediately dropped Abby and Chris and went straight to the Ring Target. I tried my best to catch both, but I ended up missing both Abby and Chris as they both hit the floor.

"Cord! Really?!" Chris said, slightly groaning after.

Cord meanwhile picked up the Ring Target and started to inspect it. "Cord, why did you do that? And are you going to tell me what a Ring Target is?"

"This thing," Cord said holding it right at me. "Can be our only way of getting an advantage of this thing." Cord turned to the three of us. "I need you three to distract Swampert so I can put this on it. Once it's on, give it your greatest Electro Ball you got, Manny."

"What? Wouldn't that have no effect against it?"

Cord did a smirk, "Trust me."

With that, me, Abby, and Chris went towards Swampert and tried to leave its back on Cord and focus on the three of us. Once Chris used Sand Attack, I yelled at Cord, "Do it Cord!" Cord raced straight toward Swampert and we got out of his way. While Cord was racing at it, a bright yellow surrounded him while he started to go even faster.

'Volt Tackle.'

Cord thrusted his arm and punched Swampert in the face. He then turned behind it and placed the Ring Target in his back. "Manny! Do it now!"

"Cord, you're in the way though!"

"Doesn't matter! Do it anyway."

I sighed. "Fine." I made an Electro Ball and threw it across the room, right at the face of Swampert. It got electrocuted and closed its eyes to take deep breaths. It was resisting my attack, but just barely. That meant my attack somehow connected. But how?

"Manny," Abby explained, "Ring Target is an item that's extremely rare around here, so you might never have a chance to see this again. If a Pokémon is holding it-which is why Cord placed that on its back-it completely makes the user vulnerable to types it's not affected to."

Oh! That's was Cord was thinking! If he was able to place it on the Swampert, he could make more damage toward it and tire the thing out!

The Swampert slowly moved its arm toward Cord and grabbed ahold of him. "You'll pay!" He launched Cord across to where the three of us were. The Ring Target fell to the ground and the Swampert stared at us.

"Oh. Crap."

"You. Will. Pay!" The Swampert charged for us and I braced for the worst… And…

It didn't happen.

The Swampert couldn't get past the halfway point because of a pink shield protecting us to stop it from its tracks and it kept on hitting it repeatedly. But no matter what the Swampert did, the shield completely stopped it.

_Well, I must admit you had great idea, Cord. But when a Ring Target is used on a possessed, there's a low chance of the move doing damage._

"What was that?!" Chris looked in multiple directions, but no one was there.

"Oh, right. I've haven't shown myself yet."

A bright light appeared in front of everyone's face as something appeared… I think its pink fur gave it away, but in case you were wondering its blue eyes were staring at all four of us.

It was a Mew!

All four of us were speechless. "None are you going to talk?" Mew approached us. "No? Okay then. Abby, Chris, Cord, and Manny." She pointed at each Pokémon's name saying that. "I suggest we get out of here before that Swampert breaks through my Reflect." She grabbed ahold of all of us. "Hold on tight!"

Mew used Teleport to get out of Idle Island… I guess there's one last thing to say.

I definitely hated Ground types now.

* * *

**11:30 am**

**Plains**

Mew arrived at what supposedly looks like a campfire in the middle of the forest. Logs were used as benches and some Sitrus and Oran berries were on top of a stump laying right next to the fire. "Whoa!" Chris said in awe, "What's this for?"

"It's something I made for the four of you, as you must be starving." Mew said letting us go. "Also, it's a way of me offering an apology to Manny."

I looked at her confused. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well... I technically followed you for the past three days."

"You mean that you followed us from Charred Chambers all the way toward here?" Cord questioned.

Mew laughed. "Yeah. I admit that was wrong of me doing that in the first place, since I knew where you were going anyway. But what I didn't expect was that you four would actually meet by accident."

"Wait…" I sat down on one of the logs and turned to Mew. "How did you know where we were going?"

"More importantly," Abby looked at Mew. "what did you mean with 'by accident?' I thought you told me and Chris the next time we would meet you was in the Golden Coast."

I don't remember exactly, but I believe 'told' was the triggering word for me and Cord to look at Abby and Mew at the same time. "Wait, wait, wait," Cord commented "Did you say that you, Chris, and Mew were going to meet again?"

Abby sighed. "Great, we're going to have to let them in on what's going on. Sit down Cord."

Cord grabbed a seat right next to me when Mew looked straight at him. "Cord, I… I have something for you."

Everyone-even the fire in the middle of the campsite-looked at Mew. "What do you mean by that?" Mew moved closer to Cord and gave him a deep stare. Her eye color soon changed from blue to green, then to red, green again, and back to blue. Cord was in a trance during these events and standstill after Mew was done.

I waited for a few moments before approaching him. I waved my paw right in front of his face trying to get him to flinch.

He still stood there like a rock.

I snapped my fingers right next to his ear. "Cord… Cord!"

"Ahh!" Cord shouted, jumping back. He ended up tripping on the log and fell to the ground. "What was that for?!"

"Cord, you were standing still from Mew's staring. It felt like…" I quickly realized something and turned to Mew. "She hypnotized you."

"Manny, for Pete's sake, she doesn't like being called that. She prefers her nickname, which is-." Cord stopped himself right there. He looked around with probably the most confused face I've ever seen him make and ended up looking at Mew. Cord stood up. "Harmony… How do I remember that?"

Mew-or I guess it's Harmony now-smirked at Cord. "Welcome back, 23."

"Um, I'm very confused right now," Abby said looking at me.

"That makes two of us."

"Three, actually." Chris looked at Mew and Cord at the same time.

Cord sighed. "Well, Manny, I was going to talk to you about what happened to me after we got out of Idle Island. And I guess since Harmony finally gave my memories back, I can tell you the whole story… Let's start with this:

"I have good news and bad news. The good news is I know who is behind all our encounters with those weird Pokémon in the past two days. The bad news is… I know who these Pokémon are."

That sounds… confusing. "Wait, so you know what's going on, but the problem is you know what's going on?"

"Yeah… I'm going to go straight to the point. It's not only one Pokémon, it's an entire army of them. And they all make one true name, 'The Darkness.'"

Mew interrupted. "And Cord knows about this because he used to be a part of them."

Silence took over for a few moments. I was in pure denial.

"Cord…" I looked at him. It felt like I wanted to take all my anger and my sorrow for the past three years and throw it all on him. "What the hell did you do for the past three years?"

Cord took a deep breath and looked straight at me. "It's a long story, Manny. Hope you're up for it." He turned to everyone. "Let's start at December 27, 2016.

"…This day was probably the foggiest day I've ever had as a Pokémon. I only remember one thing in the morning hours of that day, and that was Manny wishing me well during the trip I was supposedly going to make to the Golden Coast. If you saw his adorable face as a Pichu, you would have to immediately promise him that you would return sometime again. So, I promised him I would be back in about a year.

"That never happened.

"Skip over toward to around sunset and I find myself laying down on Weird Woods-a mystery dungeon where Abby found us nearby-and four other Pokémon staring right at me. I was clearly scared, but the four of them assured me they weren't going to make me die-or faint at the very least. That was the least of my worries, because I lost almost all my memories when I woke up. All I could remember was my name and… who I was.

"The four of them decided to take me in their home base until I could remember anything about myself. I should have been suspicious from the start, because it took a whole day to reach their base in the sky.

"For some reason I thought it was normal." Cord started to laugh. "Anyway, we got to the base, and the first Pokémon I spoke to was the leader of the entire base, and it was the Bisharp that we saw in Weird Woods. No fire effect in his eyes though. So, he offered his hospitality and exchanged it by joining their 'guild' as they called it. I immediately took the deal and started training right away.

"Days past… Weeks… Months… Years. I ended up staying there for about two years and eleven months. Memories came and went, as I usually forgot everything of my old life and made new room of my new one. And I was focusing on how to fight efficiently. I don't know how, but I held my own against Bisharp, which was the best fighter in the base. I thought my life was normal.

"Up until last month. November 28th to be exact.

"The day earlier, I found out that I was being transferred to another base-which turned out to be The Darkness' headquarters. Now they had to get rid of my name and call me by my official name. My named was turned from Cord to Darkness Special Agent Division Graduate #23-or D.S.A.D. 23. It was a pretty stupid name, I admit."

"Cord, sorry to interrupt." Abby said. "You mentioned that your memories came and went. Manny probably would have asked this, but did you get any memories about you and Manny?"

Cord paused and thought for a moment. "Well, just before I woke up in Weird Woods, I had a weird dream about me falling to the ground and Manny approaching me as a Pikachu. Other than that, I don't think so… I should continue.

"I got to the headquarters and I found myself doing my first job: captive duty. Pretty much, the job was we would make their rounds guarding Pokémon that were captured trespassing their area. It was my turn to guard… And Harmony was right there, behind bars."

Me, Abby, and Chris turned to Harmony, where she was giggling. "Yeah, I was there. Wrong place, wrong time you could say. Coincidently, I was looking for Cord, and it just so happened that I found him."

"She told me about that, but I didn't believe her. But she told me one thing that convinced me to go with her right away." Cord looked at me. "That was you Manny."

My ears perked up, and I looked at him. "What did she say about me?"

"Harmony didn't say, she showed you wanting to see me again. It was then I realized I wanted to go home. So Harmony used Teleport and we both got out of the building. It was then when I realized that something else was going on."

"I'll take it from here." Mew interrupted. "You all have been chosen to probably do one of the hardest things I've ever offer, and the Legendary and Mythical Pokémon don't even know about it, so I like to keep it that way. The job pretty much can determine the fate of our multiverse."

'Wait… What did she just say?'

"Did you just say multiverse? Multiverses are real?"

"I got this." Abby stated. "There's millions of universes in the entire multiverse, but each universe gets grouped into a tiny part of the multiverse. I don't know what our multiverse is named, but this universe is the third of three universes here, so this is called Universe 3. Universe 3 consists of everything that's here, the Pokémon, trees fully around us, and towns are just relatively new here. It's often referred to as the 'True Pokémon World.' Universe 2 is referred to as the 'Pokémon World' where there's humans-I hope you know who those are-and Pokémon live in harmony. And Universe 1 is pretty much where only humans live in. No trace of Pokémon anywhere. That's kind of a sad world if you think about it. Anyway, so that would put me in Universe 3 and Chris is in Universe 2."

'Ok, that would mean I am in Universe 1… Wait.'

"Chris is in Universe 2? So does that mean that he's-."

"Yes, I'm human."

…I didn't say anything about that.

"Harmony, before I start asking completely stupid questions to Chris, I would at least like to know what we are going to do now."

"Not me. You four need to get to the Golden Coast and keep a low profile there until I can come by and try to give the next instructions…" Harmony looked up at the sky. "Crap. I need to go before Dialga sees me. See you later!" She used Teleport and disappeared.

Cord sighed. "Well, all this and we didn't get a Blast Seed."

"I wouldn't say that." Chris grabbed something behind him and showed it to everyone.

It was a Blast Seed.

"How did you-?!"

"Simple. I grabbed the item while we were running toward Swampert earlier."

You know what? I think Chris is going to be a great person to get to know.

***Game File Saved***

**A/N: I don't know how, but this is over 3000 words!**


	12. The Difference Between Moving and Moving

**Chapter 10: The Difference Between Moving and "Moving"**

**12/29/19**

**1:00 pm**

**Plains (Golden Coast Area)**

After Harmony left, we all decided to eat the Oran and Sitrus Berries from the campsite and take a little break. After all, why wouldn't you after getting attacked by something that's apparently classified as a top-notch villain? After that, we packed up and started to move again.

"If you were human, how the heck can you even walk on four paws then?"

I told you I was going to ask stupid questions to Chris.

"Manny, I told you the answer about three times and I'm going to tell you again. I don't know why it happens, only I somehow know it by instinct."

"What about-."

"Manny if you're going to ask a question about me and it's going to be the same answer, don't ask the question."

After a few moments, I realized that I was going to probably infuriate everyone in the entire group momentarily, so I finally shut myself up. I could already hear the silence coming out once again, but Abby got rid of it. "You know Cord, you never answered my question earlier. What Universe are you apart of?"

"Universe 3." Cord responded without hesitation.

Uh, oh. Cord's lying again. I looked at him and gave him a stare. 'Cord I know you were lying during the beginning of your backstory, but why can't they know about you being from Universe 1?'

_Manny, it's an explanation that I'm going to talk to you privately about. But when Abby asks you that question-._

"Manny, I'm asking same question to you. Where are you from?"

_…You're going to have to lie as well._

I looked at Cord with a face meaning 'You can't be serious.' Cord gave a look back.

A sigh of defeat came out my mouth and looked at Abby. "I'm with Cord. Universe 3 as well."

_That wasn't so hard, wasn't it?_

I wanted to give him a punch in the shoulder, but there were two problems with doing that. The first problem was if I even did it, the action would be suspicious toward Abby, who's keeping a close eye on the two of us since we started trailing behind her and Chris. And even if Abby wasn't paying attention, my arm was too short to even reach Cord's shoulder. So, I couldn't do anything.

All four of us stopped right on the top of a hill we were climbing to take the view. It probably was the second-best view I've seen after yesterday's view of Misty Mountain. What probably made the view even better was on the right side, a weirdly shaped building was in distance on top of a cliff. I didn't figure out what the hell the shape was, but at least I knew one thing.

Civilization was very close by.

"Well, good news and bad news. Good news is we're nearby that town Harmony's been talking about."

Can you not see myself narrating this story?!

"And the bad news, we're going to have to get through that." Cord pointed at an object ahead in the distance. It was a cave right in front of the bottom part of the hill. I wonder where that came from?

"You've got to be kidding me." Chris said also looking down. "Another dungeon?!"

We all scaled down the hill to find a sign right next to the entrance. My first assumption was that it was the entrance toward a dungeon, but with the sign being completely corroded, it looks like this could have been a secret entrance. The words were faded, but it made out these two words.

**Beach Cave**

"I guess the dungeon's called Beach Cave… Why does that name sound familiar?"

Cord looked at me. "Don't know. That name sounds pretty familiar to me as well."

We entered the dungeon and I took off my attention towards the dungeon's name for the time being. My mind was too excited about finally getting into a comfy bed and taking an actual nap.

What our group didn't realize was that we were being followed by a familiar Pokémon…

* * *

**1:10 pm**

**Beach Cave B4F**

I think everyone in our team realized this when we got our first view of the dungeon supposedly called Beach Cave. Whenever a team enters a mystery dungeon, we always start at the first floor.

But for some reason, we're already four stories underground.

"Somebody please tell me this is normal." I asked around. No one answered. "Crap."

"Well, here's the good news about this." Abby looked at us. "If we can find the stairs going up, we can reach the first floor. If we get there…"

"We can find the main entrance?"

"Exactly!"

**Objective:**

**Find the Main Entrance!**

With everyone agreeing with her, we decided to run her plan. All four of us started to rush around the floor trying to find the stairs.

And as if Abby almost called it, Chris found stairs going up towards the higher floor.

"Woah! You were actually right?!"

Abby looked at me with a distasteful face. "Wait, you didn't believe my idea was going to work?"

"It's not like I didn't believe you." I said grinning. "I just had my doubts."

Cord meanwhile was taking a closer look at the stairs. "That's weird," he mumbled. "Hey guys!" We all heard this and rushed over to him. "Call me crazy, but something is wrong with the stairs."

Everyone was confused.

"I know that sounds weird, but if you look closer it seems like the stairs were placed right here on purpose." Taking a closer look, there's seems to be scratches on the bottom area of the stairs. Also, the entire area around the stairs was placed inside a big hole in the ground. Cord could be right…

"Look," Chris said looking at Cord. "this the only stairs in the floor. Unless you don't want to get out of here, I suggest we take it."

Cord paused a moment. "Fine. But everyone needs to watch their tail while we're still in this dungeon."

'Watch their tail?' I looked at my own tail-which was not even moving-and looked back at Cord. 'What the hell does that mean?'

_Manny, it's basically the Pokémon way of saying 'Watch your back.'"_

'Oh.'

We all headed toward the next floor upstairs…

And we luckily found the stairs momentarily after.

In the next floor, we found another stairs right off the bat.

"How did we find two stairs back to back?!" Abby yelled making an echo throughout the floor.

"Either we're being really lucky or something weird is going on."

"Wait, before we go toward the next floor." Cord pulled out an orb from his Treasure Bag and placed it on the floor. A bright light shined throughout the orb and shot toward outside the room. The light split up once it reached an intersection, and our view of sight of the light was gone. The orb broke soon after. Cord reached toward his map and flipped it toward its back. "Oh, damn it."

I walked up to peek at the map and found something that certainly shocked me. The map somehow showed the entire floor. "Cord isn't that the map with the continent?"

"Yes, it is, Manny. Why are you asking?" Cord noticed me looking at the map he was completely holding on to. "Oh, that's what you're asking about. Manny, I used a Luminous Orb to get the full layout of the floor. And we have a problem."

Abby and Chris moved closer toward to look at the map. After a few moments, Chris tilted his head confused. "So, is someone going to tell me how this map works?" Me and Cord took a quick glance at Chris. "What? Just because I've been Abby for the past few days does not mean I've learned to read these new maps."

"Fine." Cord said with a sigh. "When me and Harmony got out of the Darkness' headquarters, she gave me this map so I can know where I was going. In the front is the map of this continent, called the Grass Continent. In the back of the map, this can show the layout of any floor in any mystery dungeon. But the only way that can happen is if you walk across the entire floor. However, there is a trick way you can do that without having to move.

"You grab a Luminous Orb and place it down on the floor you want it to activate. It does that activation method you just saw-breaking the orb in the process-and voila! You got your floor layout."

I decided to take a depth look at the map. Four rooms surrounded with the orange-outline square right next to the four yellow dots. "So, if I remember, the orange square is the stairs that goes to the next floor and the yellow dots show where all four of us are, right?"

"You are correct, Manny. Those two things are true. To also add, the blue dots scattered around the area are items that we can grab throughout the dungeon. And the red dots are the wild Pokémon that can be found throughout the dungeon."

Wait, something's off. It's like it should be there but it isn't right now. Let's see. Stairs, check. Our group, check. Items, check. Enemies…

Enemies?

There weren't any?

"Where are all the wild Pokémon?" Chris asked Cord.

"Exactly. I don't know how, but they all somehow disappeared from the map…" Cord went back into the map one more time looked at everyone. "We need to get out of here immediately." He started to stuff the map inside his Treasure Bag and move toward the stairs.

"Cord."

He stopped moving and looked behind him to stare at me. "Cord, what's going on?" Cord kept silent and he gave a long face. "Cord, you need to tell us what's happening."

Cord took a glance at Abby and Chris and turned back to me. "Bisharp. It's here."

* * *

**1:17 pm**

**Beach Cave 2F-1F (Stairs)**

"Let me get this straight," I say to Cord while all four of us slowly make our way up the stairs. "Bisharp sometimes had a tendency to go out of the base and go into a dungeon for training purposes."

"That's correct. He brought me to one of these sessions before I even got promoted to Graduate 23, and this was what similarly happened in the dungeon-no wild Pokémon appeared after he was done with his session."

"And did you join in that session?" Chris asked.

"Not really," Cord said. "It was more like a way for me to get inspired since I was off sync with my fighting practices."

"Well, do you remember any moves Bisharp has done in the past?"

Cord stopped to think for a moment. "As far as I know, he uses these two moves: Dark Pulse and X-Scissor. As for the other two, it probably changed its moves by now."

"What's that supposed to mean?" I looked at Cord.

"That's an explanation for another time." We all stopped before the final step of the stairs and looked at each other. "Bisharp has to be here…Everyone ready?"

"Let's do this." Abby said nodding.

"Yes."

"Can I say no?" Everyone gave me a death stare. "What? I'm making a joke."

Cord sighed. "Unbelievable." Cord jumped off his levitating tail and started to slowly walk out the stairs. After a few moments of looking around he used two fingers from his to say, 'the path is clear.' One by one, the three of us slowly sneaked by anything that seemed suspicious and stood in the general area where Cord was standing.

"Bisharp isn't here?"

"No, it's got to be-."

Suddenly, Cord and Abby heard a soft noise me or Chris couldn't hear. "Get down!" both yelled. Cord grabbed me, Abby pushed Chris, and somehow, we got out of the way of a Dark Pulse being fired.

"What the?" I said confused. "Who used Dark Pulse?!" Cord turned around.

"That."

I looked up and my heart dropped. The black axe. Worn-out arms. And its eyes on fire. No doubt about it.

It was the Bisharp.

"Salutations, 23. Manny…Two Eevee I don't know."

Oh, great. It can talk. "Cord, how does it know my name?"

"I might have mentioned you to it once or twice."

The Bisharp gave a look to Cord and me and moved its head up. "Let's see," it said thinking to itself. "Master wants me to fight all four of you. Who should I go for first?"

'Uh, oh.'

All of us heard this and Cord, Abby and Chris got into their ready stances. When I got into my ready stance, a quick Thunderbolt came out of my body and went toward Bisharp. It noticed Thunderbolt immediately and used Iron Defense to block the attack. "Well." The Bisharp looked straight at me. "Guess you're first."

In the blink of an eye, the Bisharp moved right in front of me and gave a bullet punch right at my face. I was immediately sent flying and momentary hit a wall of rock. My eyes closed with all the gravel hitting me. 'Cord, what was that!?'

I opened my eyes to see Bisharp jump toward the air. "Pay attention, Manny!" It crossed arms to make a X-shape to fire X-Scissor. I barely rolled myself out the way just before the attack hit the wall. I got up to see Abby and Chris fire Shadow Ball at Bisharp. It dodged both Shadow Balls without even looking at them and prepared to attack me again.

Luckily, I saw this coming and using my right arm, I blocked the arm thrust Bisharp was doing halfway. A normal sized Electro Ball formed in my left hand and I shoved it towards Bisharp's chest.

It took full contact with the Electro Ball and only moved three inches.

Bisharp looked down at the Electro Ball fading and then looked straight at me.

"Oh." I moved my left arm back toward my side. "I thought that was going to be a better shot."

The Bisharp used its left leg to kick me in the right side and send me rolling into the center of the room. Kneeling, I looked at Cord. "Bisharp can read your thoughts and my telepathy," he stated.

"Now you tell me that." I turned around and stopped to see Bisharp right next to me. Both blades on his arms turned light blue and extended, barely touching my neck. "Crap."

It's Guillotine.

"You know, I wanted to play this out for a few more moments and see what else you got. Unfortunately, Master wants me to finish this so we can get with the rest of the three."

"Bisharp!"

It gave a stare at Cord. "What do you want, you traitor."

"Don't do this, Bisharp."

"You of all Pokémon should know that I finish my mission, 23, no matter what. I'm not letting you stop me."

Cord moved his head towards mine. "Manny, I'm sorry!"

I turned my head to him, utterly confused. "What?" I squeak out.

"I shouldn't have gone three years ago. I don't know what I was thinking back then…" Cord paused to think what he was going to say next. "We're brothers! We should be staying together, but instead I drove us apart. I should have waited until you were ready!"

"Enough!" Bisharp launched a Dark Pulse straight at Cord. It launched Cord with immense pain into another rock wall. "Now, where were we?"

"You know… I never wanted Cord to come here in the first place. It's been practically a living hell because everyone thought I was crazy." A laugh came out of me while something weird was going on with my body. It felt like all my energy was coming back toward me.

No.

It completely shattered my old limit.

Abby and Chris meanwhile were checking out if Cord was alright when Cord felt it.

"What the…"

"Then again… I can't really say 'I forgive you' now. I have seen what I thought I would never see before. I've met Abby, Chris, and finally got the chance to see you again, Cord." A "flame" lit inside my body, and electric sparks start showing outside my body. Chris and Abby noticed this, and their jaws drop. "I should be the one saying thank you. But when you told me that, I realized something…" The final phase happened when my eyes changed from brown to light blue with a small spark.

"I am never going to giving up. Ever."

Bisharp tried to use Guillotine, but it was no use. I somehow dodged Bisharp's quick strike and started punching it twice as hard in the chest. Turning around, I used Iron Tail and moved forward. Yes, I know the Iron Tail did not do much damage since Bisharp is part Steel type, but it at least set me up for the next move. I turned toward Bisharp and jumped toward it to give an Electro Ball in the face.

_Retreat!_

The voice gave a chill down my spine as Bisharp closed its eyes. "Understand." I phase through Bisharp while it disappears.

Deep breaths now… "That was a rush." My eyes return to brown, electric sparks stop showing outside my body, and my stamina goes back to normal.

"Manny!" Cord threw at me an Oran Berry. "You deserve that."

"Thanks." I say taking a bite.

"Manny, what was that?!"

"What was what?"

"Manny," Cord looked at me. "I don't know how, but you reached speeds that even I couldn't even think of anyone reach."

"How fast are we talking about?"

Abby shook her head. "I don't know. Ten, probably twenty times faster than I've seen you go."

"Turbo Boost," Cord mumbled.

Everyone looked at Cord. "What did you just say?"

"I think what Manny just did is called Turbo Boost. I don't know how I know that name."

"Turbo Boost… I like the sound of that."

"Yeah, but how did you learn that if I never saw you use it."

I shrugged. "Don't know, but can we get out of here? It feels like the light here is messing with my eyes."

We agreed to do so and finally got out of Beach Cave.

"…Okay, my eyes are definitely playing tricks on me."

What my first sight of seeing was a cliff. It did not have the weirdly shaped building on top of it, but the rock formation looked like a familiar Pokémon.

"What do you mean by that, Manny?"

"I don't know why," I said pointing at the rock formation, "but the rock cliff over there almost looks like Sharpedo Bluff."

Abby looked at me with a weird face. "Manny that _is_ Sharpedo Bluff."

Wait. Sharpedo Bluff… Grass Continent… Oh my God.

The epicenter of Golden Coast is Treasure Town.

***Game File Saved***

**A/N: A quick announcement: A poll is up in my profile showing, what is going to be apart of the ending in this book. Take a look at this because I'm leaving the choice to you!**


	13. Fresh Start

**Chapter 11: Fresh Start**

**Meanwhile:**

**12/29/19**

**1:30 pm**

**?**

Bisharp was not happy at all. For the first time since it was promoted to General of Darkness Legion #1-one month ago-it failed a mission that should have been surprisingly easy. After all, it was just about to get equal to Manny's newly found speed before Master called him back.

Now as it was walking down the seeming dark hallway towards Master's room, it couldn't shake the feeling that a punishment was going to happen… No, that's stupid.

He wouldn't do that.

He wouldn't do that, right?

As Bisharp got to the door, something in the back of its mind told him to not knock the door and forget about everything here. Bisharp obviously ignored that calling. Even if it wanted to leave, a promise was forced upon it, and that promise can never be broken.

The thought of harm was still looming in its mind when Bisharp knocked on the door.

"Enter!" the voice boomed.

Bisharp looked at the door handle. The only thing separating it from Master and his fury. A gulp echoed in the hallway when Bisharp turned the handle. A desk with two chairs in opposite sides was placed in the middle of the room. In one of those chairs-facing right at Bisharp-was the Pokémon he called Master.

Darkrai.

"Sir, before you say anything, I would like to mention-."

"Stop," Darkrai interrupted. "I'm not mad at you. I'm just disappointed…" he took a deep sigh. "Close the door and sit down."

Bisharp did as instructed. Right now, it knew what was going to happen no matter how much persuasion Darkrai would take.

He was going to do that.

* * *

**1:31 pm**

**Treasure Town (Guild)**

"Diglett!"

For some stupid reason, I decided to yell down at the Sentry Grate when Abby, Cord, and Chris arrived the trek that is the guild's long staircase. No one answered my calling.

"Manny, what are you doing?" said Cord walking up toward me.

"What do you think I'm doing? I'm calling the Sentry."

"Dude, Diglett isn't always the Sentry, and you know that."

"What are you two chatting about?" Abby and Chris looked at both of us with the hint that they want to know what's going on.

"…Manny and I know some Pokémon here in this guild, and we're having an argument about Sentry Duty."

"Sentry Duty?" Chris asked confused. "What is that?"

"Sentry Duty," I explained, "is pretty much trying to identify the Pokémon that step foot inside the guild building. Cord, do you want to demonstrate?"

"Fine." Cord agreed and hopped off his tail to land on the ground.

"When Cord steps on the grate, there's going to be two different voices coming out. Don't be startled by them."

Cord walked into the middle of the grate, and sure enough, the voices came:

"Pokémon detected! Pokémon detected!"

"Whose footprint?! Whose footprint?!"

"The footprint is Raichu's! The footprint is Raichu's!"

"Cord has to stay there for a few moments, so I'm going to finish the procedure. The Pokémon that hears the Sentry must go to the floor right below us to see if Cord is a felon. If he is one, the guild will not allow them entry, and probably arrest him. But if he isn't…"

"You may enter!"

"Cord can go into the guild without a problem."

"It sounds like you have three more strangers here. Get them over here!"

One by one, the rest of us went toward the grate waiting for whoever was in the Sentry role to give us access. Both Pokémon were slightly confused with Abby and Chris going back to back, but it's not like they haven't seen that before.

"All of you may enter!"

The gates slowly opened right in front of us, and the four of us finally were allowed entry to the guild.

Taking a walk inside, the layout of the entrance room was the same from when I first played the game. The board to the right having the motto, the signs across the entire room, and the spiral, wooden ladder going down to the first sublevel were all the same. 'Seems like nothing has changed at all, Cord.'

_Yeah, that's what makes me worried._

Abby started to hop on the first step down when I looked at Cord. 'What do you mean by that?'

_I just made a lie about the guild knowing who we were earlier. If Abby or Chris find out I was screwing with them, let's just say it's not going to go well._

"Manny! Cord!" Chris said while on the second step. "Are you two coming or not?"

"Coming!"

Chris went back to going downstairs after I said that. Once we couldn't see him anymore, I sighed. "You know, we wouldn't be in this hole if you decided to say we're both from Universe-."

"Manny, stop. There's an actual reason of why I did that." Cord started going down the steps. Looking down from the top of the stairs, I saw that Abby reached toward the top of the patch of light, which I would figure is the first sublevel. "Are you coming or not?"

"Oh, sorry, I got distracted." I ran down the wooden stairs-almost tripping on one of them-and slowed down to Cord's speed once I was right next to him. "Are you going to explain why you lied?"

Cord paused for a moment. "Fine. When Darkness Pokémon graduate, they take a medical treatment-depending the way they choose-that makes the Darkness officers know where they are. And worse, they can listen in to what you and anyone else around are saying. It's called Dark Pinging."

"Uh, oh. Does that mean if they can find where you are, they can set up an attack over here?"

"No, that'll be stupid of them. Every legendary and mythical would know about it and would attack their base. Luckily, this is relatively new, so the effect only lasts a whole minute, and it takes a whole hour of recharging to activate the effect again."

"Really?" I looked down again. Chris just got to the bottom of the ladder and joined to where Abby was. "Are they listening to us now?"

"No, they Dark Pinged us when we were talking about Sentry Duty. We're fine right now."

"So… I'm going to guess because of Dark Pinging, you lied about the Universe we're in."

"Yeah. The thing is if the Darkness found out we're from-Universe 1-that's going to make your entire world in jeopardy. Think about it. Universe 3 and 2 are probably going to survive the attacks the Darkness is going to throw at them because they have Pokémon right there to help fend them off. Universe 1 doesn't, so it's a very easy target for them." Cord and I found ourselves finally getting right on top of the light in the sublevel. "We'll talk about this later."

Going down into the light, the floor shined brightly inside Sublevel 1. The walls, windows having the view of the sea, and the two bulletin boards on each side feels real. Partially nostalgic, but real.

And I think Abby and Chris spoke for myself.

"Woah!" The two of them looked around like a kid spending their first Christmas.

Me and Cord walked up to them. "You like it?"

"Are you kidding me? I love it!"

I chuckled. "Glad you like it. Now let's try to figure out how we can join this place."

"Excuse me! Who is yelling up here?!"

A bird started flying up to land on top of the ladder going to the next floor. It looked around and ended up meeting its eyes on Abby. "Oh, great. It's Abby."

Wait. Music note as a head… Multiple colors as feathers… Oh, crap.

It's Chatot.

"Excuse me, do you know me?"

"Know you?" Chatot flew to the four of us. "Why wouldn't I know the latest graduates of this guild?"

'Graduates? What does that-.' I stopped to realize what Chatot meant.

Chris was going to say something when I pulled him and Abby right next to me. "Play along. This is probably Harmony's doing." I whispered to them. I let go of Abby and Chris and placed my attention back to Chatot. "Right, how wouldn't you forget about us? Sorry about that."

"Okay… Are you four going to tell me why you haven't taken any jobs for the past three days?"

Cord chimed in. "Sorry about that. We took a huge beating in one of our missions, and we needed to regroup. And I thought a few days of rest was all we needed."

"Hmm." Chatot looked at all four of us. "Fine, I'll let it slide this time."

I was relieved. "Oh, thank you-."

"But I expect you four to be here tomorrow for two jobs I was asking around for."

"Yes, sir." Everyone else said.

"Yes, sir." I said it flatly.

Chatot flew back downstairs and Abby looked at me. "What the heck was that?"

"I have no idea." I lied. "But let's take advantage of it. You two go toward the mission board over there, and me and Cord will catch up with you." Chris and Abby agreed to those terms and walked to look at the Item Retrieval Board. "Cord, open your Treasure Bag."

Cord gave me a look. "What for?"

"Just trust me." After a few moments, Cord opened his Treasure Bag and began to inspect it. To his surprise, he found a badge with a black circle in the middle of the badge and showed it to me. "I knew it!"

"You knew what?" Cord asked confused.

"Okay, the badge you have right now, that symbolizes a rescue team. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the back of the badge is the team name, and it's called 'Team Cool.'"

Cord flipped the badge and read the name on top of the badge. Cord looked at me with a confused face. "Have you touched a Thunder Stone lately, Manny?"

I sighed. "That's a bad joke, Cord. My point is…" I leaned closer to him, "I think Mew used the game you gave me three years ago for this purpose."

"I know that, Manny. But why did you name it 'Team Cool' anyway?"

Of course, he knew about what Harmony did. I didn't answer the question and walked up to Abby and Chris. "Looks like you already have a job!"

"Sure do! It's in Misty Mountain's 18th floor, and we need to grab a Blue Gummi there."

"Misty Mountain is far away from here." Cord stated. "If we're going to get back before sundown, I suggest we get a move on."

"Right!"

All of us ran up the steps and raced to Misty Mountain.

You know, all that running got me thinking about Cord's statement.

Why did I name my team 'Team Cool?'

* * *

**Misty Mountain 17F-18F (Stairs)**

**4:00 pm**

**Objective:**

**Find the Blue Gummi!**

We ran 15 miles—about 24.1 kilometers if you use metric system—to get to Misty Mountain. That took about an hour of walking/running. Now, we were going to the floor where the item is supposed to be found.

"Damn, I'm so tired right now." I said panting.

"Manny, that's your fault."

"Well, someone should have stopped me before I decided to run into the entrance!" Everyone stopped and looked at me. "…Okay, I'll shut up now."

"You know," Abby said, "I find it weird that Harmony had the time to register us as a team when she had to go back to where the Legendary and Mythical Pokémon were."

Me and Cord looked at each other. "She probably did it before meeting any of us." Cord responded.

"How do you know that?"

"I don't. I'm only guessing."

We entered a large room after just getting into the 18th floor. Five items were scattered across the room, with the Blue Gummi in the middle of the entire room. "Well, that was lucky." I walked up to pick up the Gummi when… I can't really explain it now, but I felt something was off.

"Manny, is something up?" Cord looked at me.

"I think so. Don't know what it is, but…" A whiff of something almost made me choke. I swallowed the smell and coughed it out.

"Manny!" All three of them rushed over to me and checked what the heck was wrong with me. Cord started patting me in the back, which made me cough even more.

"Cord, stop." I said coughing still. When Cord stopped, I took a few breaths trying to get rid of the toxins in my body. "That was smoke. Not from a Pokémon, but actual smoke from a fire."

"Okay…" Cord got to thinking. "You haven't smelled the smoke until now. So that means it's coming from the higher floors. The problem is there's only two floors left in this dungeon, so I don't know where-." Cord paused himself after just realizing something. "The cabin."

Cord used Teleport and disappeared from our sight. "Cord!" I called out.

"Manny, he can't hear you." Abby said. "The cabin. That's two floors above us."

"Then what are we doing standing around? Let's go!"

Me, Abby, and Chris raced up the two floors expecting anything.

For better or for worse.

* * *

**Misty Mountain 20F (Peak)**

**4:15 pm**

Armed with an Electro Ball on my right hand, I slowly peeked at the area where Cord's cabin was. To no one's surprise, only Cord stood right in front of his cabin. But it wasn't his original cabin.

It was the beaten down, burned up version of it.

I got rid of the Electro Ball and ran right next to Cord. "What the heck happened here?!"

"Manny, the house exploded. What do you think happened?"

Abby and Chris joined up to the two of us to inspect the damage. "It looks like the cabin collapsed with a fire, though."

"That's not possible." Cord responded. He started to float into the middle of the wreckage.

"Cord," Chris said, "I'm pretty sure the fire is our best explanation. Sure, the explosion might have happened after, but there's no way it-." Cord threw a large piece of wood off the mountain peak, exposing the fireplace Cord had in his cabin. Something was wrong with the fire, though.

It was surrounded by a pink, see-through shield.

"Oh." All three of us looked at the non-harmed fireplace and turned to Cord. "Cord, explanation please."

"Harmony came a few weeks ago to cabin to spend the night. She said her reasoning was to 'Get it away from it all', but to be honest, I didn't really care." Cord turned to the fireplace. "I assumed Harmony used the shield on the fireplace sometime in the middle of the night and forgot to get rid of it once she left."

"Great. That leaves us back to having no clue who did the attack."

"I have an idea who did it." I said. Everyone looked at me. "It had to be the Darkness."

"Really, Manny?" Chris said flatly.

"I don't know Chris." Abby looked at him. "It might explain how that Swampert found us in Idle Island."

"That and it's probably how they knew where we were going."

Chris looked at everyone and let out a sigh of defeat. "Fine, it could have been that. But what are we going to do with this?" He pointed at Cord's cabin.

"I got this." Cord used Psychic to lift all the wood, metal, and other burned objects from the cabin. He combined all the wood and metal to make a wooden dome. The burned objects were restored to their original forms and was placed inside the wooden dome. A door formed on our side of the dome and Cord incased the dome with a pink shield, which turned invisible momentarily after.

Cord made another cabin in about 15 seconds.

"Show off."

"Shut up, Manny." Cord said looking at me. "Let's get out of here."

Cord went to all of us and used Teleport.

* * *

**Meanwhile:**

**4:20 pm**

**?**

Bisharp entered a room with multiple Pokémon working on something. Human computers were being used with all of them being connected to one big layout screen. When Bisharp entered, everyone stopped doing whatever they were doing, and turned to Bisharp. A female Emolga approached Bisharp.

"Bisharp, what a surprise to see you here! Do you want us to Dark Ping Cord again?"

"Not this time. In fact, we're not going to try and Dark Ping him for a while." Everyone in the room was confused with Bisharp's statement.

"Then what did you come here for?"

"Orders from Master. He wants this entire room to create a new file for research."

"Yes, Bisharp. What's the name of the file?"

"Call it Universe 1."

***Game File Saved***


	14. Human Gestures, Meet Abby

**Chapter 12: Human Gestures, Meet Abby**

**12/30/19**

**1:00 pm**

**Fruit Forest**

"I feel like Chatot hates me."

The two jobs he gave our group this morning was Sentry Duty—since Diglett and Loudred are on break right now—and the monthly gathering of berries in Fruit Forest—a nearby, one-floor mystery dungeon. Before I had the chance of going with Cord to Sentry Duty, he already assigned Cord and Chris to do that, leaving me and Abby to do the berry job.

So far, we've worked about three hours since we left the guild.

"Manny, I'm not sure forcing you to do another job does not mean Chatot hates you." Abby looked at me before shaking a tree.

Some berries fell, ranging from a Cheri Berry to Sitrus Berries. It was my job to catch them before they landed on the ground and place them in the large bag we took with us. It was a great way to test my reaction timing, but I was too stubborn to admit that.

I moved to the right to catch two Oran Berries, then moved to the right. "I know that, but I would probably know more Sentry Duty than your brother would know." I caught a Sitrus Berry, placed the three berries in the bag, and turned to Abby. "No offense."

"None taken. Watch out!"

I looked up to see one Pecha Berry splat onto my face. Abby looked at me after she heard the noise and started snickering at me.

"Not funny."

"You got to admit, it looks funny when you look at yourself." At a nearby pond, I took a glance at my face. Pink goo was all around my face, with some seeds nearing my nose.

I admit, I got a kick out of myself.

"This looks stupid." I wiped off the splatted Pecha Berry and placed it on the ground next to the lake. I looked at Abby. "Can we take a break? I'm exhausted."

"Fine." Abby went to me and got two Big Apples she packed in the bag earlier. She gave one of the Big Apples to me and started eating the other one.

I understand why they called it a Big Apple. This thing was probably twice—if not three times—as big as a regular apple. Taking a bite, I started to eat my way around the entire apple until the only the stem and seeds remained of the Big Apple.

Meanwhile, Abby only has eaten about half the apple looking depressed about something. "Something up?" I asked still swallowing the last pieces of the Big Apple.

Abby looked at me with a frown. "I have two things to talk to you about."

I got confused with her saying that. "What things?"

"Well, the first one is about the thing that Cord called 'Turbo Boost.'"

'Oh, boy.' I'm still feeling shaken up from that Bisharp fight yesterday. Maybe it could be the aftereffects of Turbo Boost, but I'm not sure if I'm going to get the answer why.

"What about Turbo Boost?"

Abby explained the effects I had just before I tried to attack Bisharp—the spike in energy, electric sparks, and the change in eye color. I didn't even realize any of this was happening because I was focusing too hard on trying to defeat Bisharp. "And I'm wondering," Abby finished, "do you think we can try to activate that again?"

I scoffed. "That's going to be damn near impossible."

"How so?"

"I've only done Turbo Boost once. And I don't even know how I activated it in the first place."

"I got an idea." Abby stood up and walked toward two rocks separated. "Let's have a race."

I walked to where Abby was. "A race?" I said to her confused.

"Yes, a race. These two rocks are the starting line." She pointed at a tree. "We're going to run to the tree in the distance, turn around, and then come back to the rocks here."

"Fine, let's do it."

I got on four legs, took a deep breath, and waited for the words.

"Ready. Set. Go!" Me and Abby take off. Even though I got to the tree faster, Abby was leading me just before we crossed the finish line.

She obviously won the race.

"Again." She told me. I agreed, and she won the race again by more than two seconds. "Again!" We would continue doing this about ten times until I couldn't even move anymore once Abby started the race. "Manny, you're killing me here. Again!"

I groaned. 'I can't do this anymore! I'm frustrated, calm, and-.'

Wait.

'Did I say calm? How would I be calm about this? I should be gullible to even consider doing all of this. Unless… It was happening.'

I got back into the starting line, and only placed my right paw on the ground. The left one—along with my left arm—was hanging up in the air. Abby looked at me confused. I only winked as a response. "Ready. Set. Go!"

I immediately take off on two feet. Not counting time, I was able to hit the tree with my tail—making a mark—and run back to the finish line almost immediately.

Abby didn't even take a step.

"What the?" She turned around confused to start laughing. "Manny, your eyes!" Going into the pond, I find myself looking at my face.

The eye color was light blue again.

Abby came into my vision by coming right next to me and giving a surprise hug. "We did it!" She shouted. Both of us started laughing out of joy. "We actually did it…" Abby sighed.

"Didn't you had one more thing to tell me?"

"Y-Yeah!" She said still holding onto me. "It about when we stayed the night in Misty Mountain… I lied about what happened that night."

"You did what?!"

"Wait, correction: I didn't lie about that night. But I left one thing out of being embarrassed." Abby started blushing. "And I was wondering if you could tell me what was that you did?"

"Alright…"

"Yes, it did seem like you were having a nightmare. But when I woke you up, you did this." Abby still was holding on to me—which was weird that she still held the same position—and took a deep breath. She immediately moved closer to me, doing something both you and me would never expect.

She kissed me…

On the lips.

I was paralyzed from my head to the tips of my tail. 'What was she doing? Doesn't she know what a kiss is? Wait… Oh, no. I think I kissed her like this in Misty Mountain!

'Crap.'

After a few moments, Abby finally stopped kissing me and let me go, which made me respond to drop down to the grass and back away from her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm just trying to process this," I said stammering. What the hell was wrong with me then?

"Did you figure out what it was?"

"I…" I sighed. "I can't tell you now. It's way too embarrassing."

"Oh. Okay…" She gave me a paw for me get back up. "I think our break is done. Let's get back to work." I took the paw to get up, and we agreed to go to work.

Man, Cord's not going to be happy.

* * *

**7:00 pm**

**Sharpedo Bluff**

"You kissed her?!

"I was half asleep, Cord! I didn't know what the fuck I was doing!"

Abby and Chris left Sharpedo Bluff— our new home—to Treasure Town to get all four of us dinner that night. It was a lucky situation, so I told him what happened that night in Misty Mountain.

Needless to say, I wasn't lucky now.

Cord groaned. "This makes our situation even worse…"

I dropped my head. "What do you think I should do now?"

"The only option: you have to tell her."

I turned to Cord. "You can't be serious."

"Manny, these were the Pokémon Harmony trusted us to cooperate with. You admitted that I got us in this hole, so both of us are going to get out. And the first step is you confessing what happened that night."

"Fine, I'll do it. On one condition."

"What's that?" Cord said confused.

"Tell me how you evolved…" Cord started smirking. "I-It's not what you think! I am just curious, okay?"

"Alright, alright! I'll tell you." Cord came closer to me. "In fact, I'll show you."

Cord placed a paw on my forehead and made a light shine in front of us. Once the light went back into normal, we were standing on pitch black ground. "I can't see, Cord!"

"This is a training mystery dungeon, Manny. You're going to have to use Power Gauging for this one."

Closing my eyes, I noticed that we were inside a room with columns surrounding an item. The item gave a certain spark of a certain item. "Is that a Thunder Stone?"

"Yes, it is. This takes place a long while before I graduated. The training exercise was to find the Thunder Stone and retrieve the item back to base."

An echo of someone screaming came from the hallway. After the scream subsided, a Pikachu came out of the hallway frustrated. "Cord, is that you?" I whisper to him.

"The younger version of me. I just got into a falling out with my mission partners."

"Stupid teammates. Can't even decide on the path we need to go." Young Cord walked from the path to the middle of the room. He stopped right in front of the Thunder Stone and bent down to inspect it. After touching the item, it broke in half and one part went to the Pikachu. A blue light surrounded it.

"It's happening!" I said excited.

Cord looked at me. "Not exactly…"

The blue light faded away, but something was wrong.

The Pikachu was still a Pikachu. I was confused. "Um, what just happened? Did it work?"

"Oh, it worked alright. The problem was, when I broke the Thunder Stone in half, it triggers a slow process of evolving instead of the instantaneous step that only lasts a few moments." The scene changes to a mess hall the next day with Pokémon all over avoiding Cord, who was eating his breakfast. He still was a Pikachu, but the ears now looked like an Alolan Raichu's. "Now how did I become this version of Raichu? I believe it had to do something with what I was eating now."

Getting a closer look, I see Young Cord eating a large pancake with sizeable holes. 'Wait, why am I calling it a pancake? That's a waffle!'

"They have waffles here?!"

"Technically, these are Universe 2's waffles, but they're still amazing. I can almost taste them from here…" Cord started to salivate.

I looked around to notice everyone in the room look at Young Cord—who was minding his own business. "What about everyone here?"

Cord got back into focus and looked around. "Oh…" He looked at me. "Pokémon—like humans— fear what they don't understand. In a way, it makes us similar to who all of us are. But that same similarity will always drive us apart."

The scene fades back into Sharpedo Bluff where Cord overlooks the blue, murky sea. "After a few days of eating some waffles, I got to the form you see now. Someone taught me how to use Teleport, and I got back to training—like I always did."

I went right next to him. "Are you okay?"

…_Those days were the hardest days I had as a Pokémon there. I couldn't take it anymore, and I felt that I was going to run away from everything, like I did to you._

"Cord, those days are over." I placed my paw on his shoulder. "Sure, you did run away from the place, but at the very least we got on probably you and I would say is the weirdest and best adventure I've had in forever."

"We're back!" Abby and Chris both yelled at the two of us. Footsteps can be heard from the stairs.

"Time to keep your end of the bargain."

'Oh, boy…' The two Eevee arrived with a mix ranges of Berries and Apples.

"Abby, um, I think it's time for me to say what I did Misty Mountain." Abby looked at me with a face saying "go on…" I took a deep breath. Let's do this.

I told her the truth.

***Game File Saved***

**A/N: I want to make a clarification I said in a earlier chapter. Instead of Chapter 13 being the special chapter, I'm making Chapter 14 the special chapter. And I will be posting chapter 13 and 14 simultaneously together.**


	15. The Truth Hurts A Lot

**Chapter 13: The Truth Hurts… A Lot**

**1/2/2020**

**9:57 am**

**?**

It's been two days since I told Abby about what happened in Misty Mountain and let's just say she hasn't taken it well. When I told her the truth, she fired a Shadow Ball right at me, sending me to the depths of the sea. It was lucky that Cord would know what any human would do—swim straight into shore. Cord came to the beach to pick me up, and Abby didn't talk to me for the rest of the night.

I was at least satisfied with Chris convincing her to make small talk with me.

'Damn it, I can't sleep.'

My eyes slowly opened to see an abundance of white. "Uh, oh." The white surrounded me for miles… No doubt about it. "This is the first place I saw Cord again…"

"Hey Manny!"

I immediately turn around—Electro Ball out—to face a Pokémon. It was Harmony.

I sigh. "You scared the hell out of me!"

"You've been having some trouble lately… I just wanted to contact you."

I close my hand with the Electro Ball and sit down. "You're contacting me through a dream?"

"You don't know about this place?" Harmony started floating above right me. "This is the Dream World!"

Her voice echoed throughout the flat terrain of white. "Dream World?" I asked.

"This place is the meeting point of all three Universes. Space and time get pretty weird around here, which would explain why Cord saw you three years ago and you saw him about a week ago."

I guess it would… Wait. "How are you here? Wouldn't you be a part of this randomness here?"

"Not exactly. To put it simply, Legendary and Mythical Pokémon get a 'Time Placer Card' so we can pinpoint exactly when and where we can go to the Dream World." Harmony dropped to my height "Enough about me. I hear Abby's pretty angry for you kissing her," she said, giggling after.

"Angry? More like pissed. She doesn't want to talk to me… And I don't want to talk about her right now."

"Alright then." Harmony agreed. "What about Turbo Boost?"

Why did I have a feeling she was going to talk about that? "Let me guess, you saw the fight I had with Bisharp, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did. Some of the Legendries also felt that your energy was increasing exponentially and was about to start investigating. But I was able to convince them that it was their imagination a few hours after that. You're welcome."

"Thanks, I guess?" I responded. "Can you tell me anything about it?"

"Hold your arms out."

I hesitantly put my arms out and waited. 'Is Harmony tricking me or something?'

Thud!

A heavy book formed right in front of my eyes and sagged from my arms. I glanced at the book, then looked at Harmony.

"Right… You don't know about it." Harmony said grinning. "Basically, if you imagine an object, it usually can be shown here." Harmony used Psychic to lift the book to her height. "Turbo Boost—or by its technical name Laevo Turbo—is the effect when a Pokémon can reach unimaginable speeds. Not much is known about it, as it has only been rumored throughout the world. But you're not the only Pokémon who has been seen using Turbo Boost."

"I-I'm not?" I said confused.

She shook her head. "There was one Pokémon before you. It was a Jolteon that got that reward from a Legendary Pokémon… To be honest, the book doesn't know what happened to that Jolteon. Weird."

I sigh. "It's fine. I wasn't sure if even you would know about it… But Cord knew about it."

"What do you mean by that?"

"What I'm saying is that Cord knew about Turbo Boost before the three of us even knew about it."

"Hmm…" Harmony started thinking. "When I was looking for this book, some of the important books were missing."

I facepalmed. "And you haven't realized something was wrong with that until now?!"

"I-I don't know!" Harmony yelled. "I thought Darkrai would use it for re—…" Harmony realized something. "Shit!" She jumped from the floor and started heading south in the Dream World. I used Quick Attack to catch up from her astonishing speed. "I have one last thing to tell you."

I immediately looked at her. "Tell me already!"

"It's about Cord. He's your—."

Everything went to black right then and there.

* * *

**10:17 am**

**Sharpedo Bluff**

"Wake up, sleepyhead!"

A large groan came out of me when I opened my eyes. Abby, Cord, and Chris were looking down at me. "I overslept again, didn't I?" Everyone nodded. "Shit!"

I jumped off the straw bed I was on and started running to the stairs. "Manny!" Cord yelled. "We have the mission here!" Stopping myself, I tripped three steps up the stairs and rolled all the way down back into the group. "Abby got this letter while we were trying to wake you up."

Cord gave the letter for me to read it:

_For Team Cool,_

_When you get this, the guild will be currently on an expedition to map the Air Continent for future missions. In the meantime, here's two missions that asked for your presence just before we left. I hope to Arceus that you can finish these missions with success._

_Good luck._

_From, Chatot_

"Well on the bright side, Chatot didn't ridicule me." I mumbled. "Wait, two missions?"

"I'm just confused as you are." Chris said to me. "These two missions are in completely separate dungeons."

"Even weirder, they come from the same anonymous client."

To put a little background around this, Pokémon send letters to the guild about if them needing an item, helping them find someone, or asking for their rescue. At the very bottom of the letter, they can tell the guild to make the client anonymous for privacy reasons.

It's a kind of stupid feature if you ask me.

"We have to get this done by today," Cord insisted, "so I suggest we split up teams for this one."

I sighed. "So, you want to hit two birds with one stone?"

"Exactly. So—." Cord paused himself to look at me. "So let's get upstairs and choose the dungeons we're going to go on."

Abby and Chris went upstairs, while I turned a look at Cord. "Something wrong?"

"You just had to say that phrase, didn't you?"

"Okay, if you're angry about me saying that, I'm sorry… But I think today's the day."

Cord looked at me surprised. "I thought you said we were going to do it tomorrow."

I started going to the stairs. "Let's just say I have a feeling we're going to be pretty busy tomorrow."

"Then I assume you know who you're going with?"

I nodded right before I started to go upstairs... 'Today's going to be a hard day.'

It's time to tell Abby who I really was.

* * *

**3:00 pm**

**Charred Chambers 2F**

My assumptions were right, as me and Abby went to—ironically—the first dungeon I saw as a Pokémon. Cord and Chris were doing the other job in Idle Island, which was grabbing an Escape Orb.

Meanwhile, the two of us were doing probably the weirdest job I've ever taken.

**Objective:**

**Find the Unknown Client!**

"So how do we know who's the Pokémon we're looking for?" I asked Abby.

She shrugged. "Probably when we hear someone screaming, then we'll know."

Silence took over for the next few minutes as we roamed around the second floor—defeating some Pokémon along the way— searching for the stairs. This dungeon must be huge, because we couldn't still find it after just five minutes of searching.

"…Harmony talked to me last night."

Abby looked at me surprised. "You're joking. You are joking, right?"

After turning into the next room and seeing the stairs, I stared at Abby. "Absolutely not."

* * *

**Meanwhile:**

**Idle Island**

"What?!" Chris yelled across the entire floor of Idle Island. "You and Manny are… like me?"

"Not exactly like you." Cord said facing Chris while floating backwards. "We're from Universe 1."

Chris stopped moving to look down at himself. Cord tried to move closer, but Chris didn't let him. "I just… I can't believe someone else here is not a Pokémon in real life… Is that why Manny said that phrase earlier?"

Cord chuckled. "Probably. Although I would understand that he's said multiple things to you that's a part of our Universe."

"Like the time when he said God instead of Arceus?"

Cord facepalmed. "Damn it, Manny. Why did you say something about religion?" He went back to Chris. "That's something I'm going to talk about—."

Cord stopped talking as he got paralyzed in motion.

"Cord?"

What happened next completely scared the hell out of Chris:

In the blink of Cord's eyes, his eye color changed to black and started to set on fire.

"Crap."

* * *

**3:10 pm**

**Charred Chambers 3F**

"I'm slightly relieved that someone—even in legend—has this, but that still doesn't tell anything about Turbo Boost."

I'm finally got Abby to talk to me again.

Thank God. "At least we know the alternate naming of it," I joked. Looking at both paths, I closed my eyes to focus on the rest of the dungeon. Nothing was there—neither hostile nor regular Pokémon.

'Weird. This is the third minute that no one's here.'

"Manny are you going to explain what you were talking about this morning?"

I glanced at Abby. Of course she would know about it. Abby followed me taking a left leading into another empty room. She went ahead of me and looked at me. "Tomorrow was going to be the day I told you this, but I decided to do it today… Me and Cord are not from around here."

Abby tilted her head in confusion. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I'm saying I'm not from this continent… And definitely not a part of this world." Abby moved back a few steps as if she were expecting what I was going to say. "And I've been hiding this for so long that I just have to tell it to you right now." I took a deep breath. "Me and Cord… Are from Universe 1."

Abby sat down and started to look down. "I figured that someone in this team would have to be from there… But I didn't expect the person would be right in front of my face."

"Look, me and Cord lied to you and Chris a few days ago because of a stupid thing Cord has since he was once apart of the Darkness. And I just want to say I'm sorry about… Everything."

Abby glanced at me and sighed. "I would usually still be angry at you for lying about who you were… But honestly, I can't hold a grudge forever."

"Does that mean…" I said excited.

This was it!

"Yes, I forgive you. Now come on, we need—."

An Escape Orb landed right next to us creating a loud sound effect. Both of us looked at the orb, glanced at each other, and stared to what was above us. It was a black shadow with two black eyes staring right back at us.

Even worse, the eyes had those same fire effect that I hate seeing.

"Manny."

"What?"

"…Sorry about this."

Abby looked straight at me and used Tackle to launch me out of the room. After kicking the Escape Orb right to me, she fired a Shadow Bal at the rocks to block me from ever entering the room. "What are you doing Abby?!" I yelled at her even though the rocks blocked me from seeing her.

"It came for you, Manny. Get out of here! Get o—!"

…

Silence. Absolute silence.

I was just to call out Abby but had to stop myself with the thing probably listening to me.

'And if the thing is coming for me…'

A large set of hesitation came over me just before I smashed the Escape Orb.

* * *

**6:00 pm**

**Sharpedo Bluff**

…I just ran right after using the Escape Orb and didn't stop. Sure, it shaved about two hours of my arrival, but it wasn't worried about that. "Cord! Chris!" I yelled at the staircase. Chris jumped over the final step of the stairs to stare at me. I looked at the staircase and Cord was not there. "Where's Cord?"

Chris looked behind me, which was the regular Treasure Town without Abby. "Where's Abby?"

I hesitated. "She's… I don't know what happened to her. What happened to Cord?"

Chris bit his lips. "Cord… got possessed."

"What!?"

"I don't know how it happened, okay? One moment he was telling me about you and him being from Universe 1, the next he attacks me out of nowhere!"

"On the bright side, you know that I'm human now… I'll be right back."

I started to run into town. "Where are you going Manny?!"

"Don't follow me!"

I went through the town and turned into the beach.

What I didn't expect was a Riolu looking at me running and followed me shortly after.

***Game File Saved***


	16. Winter Wonderland

**A/N: This chapter is going to be very different from the regular chapter format. Italics will be used when Manny is "speaking," and underline will be used when our special guest is "speaking," and both italics and underline are when both Manny and the guest are "speaking." Why am I making air quotes of speaking?**

**You're just going to have to read to find out.**

**Chapter 14: Winter Wonderland**

**1/2/20**

**6:05 pm**

**Beach**

I was hitting the sand out of frustration…

That's how low I got.

My mind was still taking in the fact that Abby was either stuck in Charred Chambers or off somewhere with this kidnapper. To make matters worse, Cord got possessed by the Darkness, attacked Chris—which he survived somehow—and teleported off to who knows where.

'Maybe I could have done better with Abby, but I can't change that now.' I got tired of kicking sand, so I decided to sit down and listen to the waves. 'Breath in… Breath out… Breath in…'

"Hi there, Manny."

I turned to my right to glance at a female Riolu. But her appearance was different from other Riolu since her feminine parts showed—for example, she had hair drooping all the way to her middle back.

Anyway, after glancing at the Riolu, I faced back into the beach. "Hi Lira," I said doing a faint simile.

After reading the last sentence a few times, you probably ask this question to me: how do I know who Lira is?

The answer is… Complicated. To put it simply, our team needed a place to stay until we had enough credits to make our own house. We asked along the guild, and Cord eventually found Team Crusade—Lira's team. And as it turned out, her teammate used to live in Sharpedo Bluff before he met Lira. After a few minutes of debating, stupidity, and whatnot, we ended up agreeing on them letting us stay at the Bluff as long as we don't touch anything, and—because we felt generous—we paid the team a fair amount of coins.

"I saw you pretty frustrated a few moments ago. Is something wrong?"

"Um…" I hesitated slightly. "Two of my teammates have gone missing. One I had no absolute control over, but if I had done one thing differently, I could had saved her…"

"Sounds like you need a little cheering up." Lira sat down right next to me. "I might know the perfect song for it."

She started to hum a few notes that sounded very familiar to me.

(This is when the italics and underline will start make sense.)

"Sleigh bells ring, are you listening?

"In the lane, snow is glistening."

'No... Way. It's this song.'

"A beautiful sight,

"We're happy tonight,

"Walking in a winter wonderland.

"Gone away is the Swablu

"Here to stay is a Pidgey.

"It sings a great song,

"As we go along,

"Walking in a winter wonderland.

"In the meadow, we can build a snowman.

"We'll pretend that he is someone you know.

"He'll say, 'Are you ready?'

"We'll say, 'No man!

"'But we can do the job when you're in town.'"

For some reason, I decided to sing along.

"_Later_ _on, we'll conspire…_

"_As we dream by the fire._

"_To face unafraid,_

"_The plans that we've made,_

"_Walking in a winter wonderland_."

Lira stopped singing after realizing I "somehow" knew the lyrics of the song. "How did you know that? I though I would be the only Pokémon in this town that would know it."

Oh, boy. I was in for it now. "Well…" I stood up and wiped all the sand off me.

"_Let's just say,_" I say for some reason singing again, "_that I'm new here_.

"_And I'm not…"_ I point to myself._ "familiar like this."_

"_But I can't believe they're gone,_

"_And we're talking about them,_

"_While I'm singing this song_."

I started chuckling after. This was ridiculous!

But it seems like Lira's getting into it…

"You don't know…" She stood up. "if that's true.

"And I don't mean to be rude.

"But you're acting like a wimp,

"And you can't handle it.

"So, get a grip."

'I got to stop this before it gets weird.'

"Thanks." I said sigh after. "But how am I supposed to do that?"

She thought for only a second and responded quickly. "I believe you still have a teammate still with you, right?"

"Yeah, I do. But what's the point—."

"Then what's the problem then? You still have hope! Stop worrying about the mistakes everyone's made and move on."

After a few moments of thinking, I start smiling. "Can we finish the song?"

"Absolutely…

"In the meadow we can build a snowman.

"And pretend that he's a circus clown."

"_We'll have lots of fun with mister snowman!_

"_Until the other kids knock him down…_

"When it snows, it ain't thrilling.

"Though your nose gets a chilling."

"_We'll frolic and play_,

"_The Eskimo way_,

"_Walking in a winter wonderland…_"

"Walking in a winter wonderland…"

"_Walking in a winter wonderland!_"

I spent the last few seconds humming the final notes of the song.

"That was… fun!"

"Glad you liked it," Lira responded.

"Well… I gotta go." I started walking past Lira. After a few moments, I ultimately stop to look back her. "Oh, and the next time you sing that human song to anyone, sing it like the version you were going for. It's pretty neat!"

I started **running** toward Treasure Town.

All Lira could do was smile, knowing she did well.

* * *

**6:15 pm**

**Sharpedo Bluff**

Maybe it was a coincidence that Lira showed up.

I beg to differ.

Chris meanwhile was confused with what happened. "So, she sang a human song with you? That's impossible!"

"Hey, at the very least, we know that we're not the only humans in this world… Anyway, when we finished the song, I realize what we had to do."

Chris looked at me confused. "What?"

"We're going to get Abby and Chris back."

***Game File Saved***

**A/N: This chapter was-from the beginning-always going to be apart of the story. I just needed another character for the singing part. I turned to one of my inspirations: ****SilyaBeeodess for help. And I caught a lucky break; I was able to use her main character Lira from Guardians of Light and it made this chapter a whole lot easier.**

**So I would like to say thank you ****SilyaBeeodess for the hard work you do, and for letting me use her character.  
**

**If you haven't done so, check her out because she's an amazing author!**


	17. How Can I Listen to Telepathy Calls?

**Chapter 15: How Can I Listen to Telepathy Calls?**

**1/2/20**

**9:00 pm**

**Nearby Charred Chambers**

The nighttime sky shined very brightly at this night. The stars felt like it was at its closest to this world. It truly was a sight to behold…

But I, meanwhile, wasn't paying attention to any of it. I was too focused on running nonstop to Charred Chambers.

"Manny, you still haven't told me how we're going to find Abby and get Cord back from the Darkness." Chris moved right next to me after eventually picking up my speed.

Okay, I admit that I overly exaggerated to Chris when I told him I had a plan. "I'm still working on it," I said, responding slowly.

"Then can you answer this question: why are we going to Charred Chambers first?"

I think I should give the warning first.

"Let me say that these ideas have no guarantee of working… The shadow dropped an Escape Orb—which was how I escaped in the first place—just before it attacked Abby. My hope is that was the only Escape Orb it had and must get through the random floors Charred Chambers has."

In case you were wondering what I'm talking about, Charred Chambers has an about forty-seven percent chance of having a random number of floors. This can be as short as two floors all the way to the tallest being ninety-nine floors. The other fifty-three percent makes the dungeon have its default floors, which is four floors. Cord told me about this after our team had a New Year's mission there.

"Okay, what about if that wasn't the only Escape Orb it had?"

"Let's hope not then." After stopping briefly for me to get a quick five-minute power nap, the two of us arrived at Charred Chambers. By the look at Chris' face, he looks afraid of what's going to happen here. "We are going to find her, Chris."

"I know… I just think we might have to face a Pokémon like Bisharp to have a shot of getting her back."

We started walking inside the dungeon as I closed my eyes to focus.

'Let's try not to screw this up.'

* * *

**9:08 pm**

**Charred Chambers B2F**

Two minutes passed inside Charred Chambers, and I believe I jinxed me and Chris. Three times as many Pokémon I've ever seen in one dungeon were here attacking both of us on the second floor. "I hate Monster Houses," Chris said jumping in the air since we started fighting a minute ago. He fired a Shadow Ball at a Machoke, which fainted soon after falling.

"I know," I agreed. "Especially when the stairs are on this room." I used Iron Tail to block attacks coming from a double team made of a Lycanroc and a Boldore. It was hard to attack two Pokémon while they were attacking at me at the same time, so I relied on defense. I started dodging attacks coming from both Pokémon. After a few moments of dodging, I got scratched by the arm by the Lycanroc. "Think you can help me here?!" I yelled at Chris.

"Hold on!" Chris used Sand Attack to blind the Pokémon he was fighting and went to me. At the same time, both the Lycanroc and the Boldore backed up to fire pieces of Stone Edge straight at my direction. Chris jumped right in front of me and used Protect to block the attack. "Now!"

I jumped in the air to fire a Thunderbolt at the surrounding area of where the hostile Pokémon were. It paralyzed some of them, while the others were taking the damage with no problem. A full-sized Electro Ball formed on my hand, and I threw it into the middle of the area.

I didn't expect to see anyone there faint out this attack. The explosion made a cloud of dust that surrounded all the Pokémon, making our escape to the stairs easily.

"That was exhausting," I said panting soon after.

"What, you've never faced more than one Pokémon at a time? That's complete—." I gave a stare to Chris while he paused himself in thought. "Oh, right. Sorry."

I sighed. "…I need to take a quick breather." Just before the final step before the next floor, I sat down to start taking deep breaths.

Chris decided to sit down as well and look down at the bottom of the stairs, where hostile Pokémon were walking around, fighting each other. Even the Lycanroc and the Boldore that were double teaming me earlier were about to fight each other till one fainted. "These Pokémon are acting like… animals."

"I'll honestly never understand why all these Pokémon have the tendency of fighting anyone, including each other."

"Neither will I… And I've only been here for more than a week." Chris started laughing.

I smiled while shaking my head. "That makes me wonder…" I stood up to look at the next room. With no one there, I entered the room with Chris following behind. "I know your world has regions, so where are you from?" We started to enter a pathway.

Chris hesitated slightly but cleared his throat to answer. "I know it's not the answer you would expect, but I come from Unova."

"Unova?" I said surprised. "You're right, I wouldn't get that you're from there. That, and it's kind of a coincidence…"

Now it was Chris' turn to be surprised. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I paused Chris from moving as two Raticate passed by us in the crossway. We went into the opposite direction of where the Pokémon came from. "In our world, regions aren't a thing. It's basically territories that we call countries. I'm from a country called the United States." We ended up in a room without any other pathways, forcing us to turn back. "As it turns out," I continued, "your region is pretty similar to a major city I live nearby."

Chris went right next to me. "What's the city called?"

"It's called New York City. Pretty amazing place to be if you see it for the first time. Everything there is like your… Castilla City, right?"

"Everything?" Chris said as he was moving more ahead of me toward the next room.

"Well… Not exactly everything." There was only one pathway left in the floor we haven't looked at, and it will probably lead us to the stairs. "For starters, New York is larger than Castilla City. It's a lot more populated too… By, like, thousands of more people."

"Damn… I never thought so many people would be confined into one tiny area!"

'Technically, there's more than one area, but I'll let him imagine about it.'

We entered the final room in the floor, and lo and behold, there was the stairs right in front of us.

That, and a hole in the middle of room was shaped like a Pikachu.

I stared at the hole while Chris was going to the stairs. After realizing what I was doing, Chris stopped moving and looked at me. "What's that?" he asked.

"This was the spot I landed when I was first a Pikachu."

Chris looked repeatedly at the hole and at myself. "That must have been painful from that height."

"I don't think I had any pain when I landed here." I started going towards the stairs.

"How do you know that?" Chris said entering the stairs first.

"The same reason when Cord had a hole in the dream…" I said entering the stairs. "Pokémon logic."

* * *

**9:13 pm**

**Charred Chambers B3F - B4F (Stairs)**

I think the fifty-three percent of Charred Chamber's number of floors didn't work in our favor, as the final floor was on the fourth floor. We were slowly making our final decent down to the floor when a rumbling shook the entire stairwell.

"What the heck?" I said confused. "What's going on?"

The shaking stopped after a few seconds after. "I have a bad feeling about this."

_Someone help me…_

"Shut up!" The voice echoed from the room below.

I looked down at the surface of the final floor and looked back at Chris. "Did you hear that?" I whispered.

"The 'Shut up?' Of course, I heard that."

"I'm talking about the telepathy."

"Telepathy?" Chris tilted his head. "Who can do this 'telepathy' here?"

"I have a feeling who could it be." Both of us got down to the final step of the stairs to look at the room. It was only one room, as both pathways extending outward were blocked by gravel. In the middle of the room, an Eevee was laying on the floor with a scar on the stomach. "Is that…"

"Abby… What the hell happened to her?"

I looked at what was next to her, which was a Treasure Bag with a badge on top of the bag. "…Cord took his bag, and had only one Escape Orb in the bag, right?"

Chris looked at me surprised. "Yeah. How did you—… Oh, crap." He moved to right behind me when a shadow on the floor started moving toward Abby. I formed a half-sized Electro Ball on my hand and waited.

The shadow moved around Abby in circles, trying to inspect if Abby was still unconscious. It stopped behind Abby, and got out of the floor, forming a Pokémon.

It took the form of Cord.

I threw the Electro Ball straight at him, and to our surprise, Cord caught the Electro Ball with one paw.

"Really Manny?" Cord looked at the stairs where we were hiding.

"Oh, great." Chris said groaning after.

Both of us entered the room, with stern faces going straight at Cord. His eyes were still on fire, so he's still possessed. "Cord, I don't want to fight you."

_Manny, you of all people should know that it's not me right in front of you._

"Where is that voice coming from?" I say out loud.

"Don't worry about that right now." Cord said staring right at me.

He raced to me at lighting-speed to give me a huge punch in the face when I closed my eyes quickly.

'…Laevo.'

Everything started moving in slow motion, with Cord going into normal speed. I was just about to dodge the attack when a loud voice came.

_Hey! I didn't give you any instruction to attack these Pokémon. Get back to base!_

Cord paused from moving to realize that I was listening to his telepathy. "Yes sir."

He used Teleport to disappear from my face and time went back into normal.

_Manny, you realize how I can speak to you now, right?_

"…I think I do, Cord."

Chris looked straight at me surprised. "Manny! You have Turbo Boost out again!"

I looked at my paws, which were having bits of sparks falling out to the ground. "Huh. What do you know!"

"What in the name of Arceus happened here?!"

A bright light showed up in the corner of the room, with Harmony coming out of the light and floating towards us. "What are you doing here?"

"The Legendries completely noticed you using Turbo Boost again. I managed to sneak out of my meeting." She looked at Abby, who was still unconscious with the scar. "What happened here?"

"Long story short:" I said quickly. "Cord got possessed by Darkness and attacked Abby, probably causing a scar."

Harmony sighed. "Let's just get out here."

"Chris, you're picking Abby up," I joked.

"What?! Why?"

"Because she picked you up in Misty Mountain, that's why." I reasoned.

Chris muttered to himself—and probably cursed me out—but finally obliged to pick Abby. Harmony meanwhile was preparing herself to use Teleport and looked at us. "I'm ready when you are," she stated.

Both of us touched Harmony's tail and she used Teleport.

* * *

**9:17 pm**

**Outside Charred Chambers**

Harmony landed us just nearby the entrance of Charred Chambers. 'I'm relieved we got Abby out of here… But after seeing Cord like that, I'm truly clueless how we are going to get Cord back from the Darkness?'

"Guys, I'm going to have to admit something." Both of us looked at each other confused and looked at her. Harmony turned around to yell at the trees, "You can come out now!"

A rumbling in the floor started happening right in front of us as a huge, blue Pokémon started walking towards us. Two silver horns got into view and it stopped just in front of us.

Two horns… Blue… Some cracks in the body… Shit.

It's Dialga.

"Mew! Who are these Pokémon with you?!"

Harmony cringed a bit but got back into normal. "It's a very long story…"

Looks like Cord might have to wait a little while.

***Game File Saved***


	18. The Legendary Meeting of Truth!

**Chapter 16: The Legendary Meeting of Truth!**

**1/2/20**

**9:30 pm**

**Sky**

Dialga still may be pissed at Harmony, but at least he was empathic enough for us to ride on his back when we were in the air. After us getting on and placing Abby—who was still unconscious—in a safe area, Dialga jumped in the air and took off towards the nighttime skyline.

It was at this point that I realized we had to hold on for dear life.

The higher we got, the more amazing the view was. Treasure Town looked like a lighthouse in the Grass Continent, with the dungeons surrounding the town having little to no light. The view of the world was also coming into sight with more lights coming from the Air Continent. Pretty soon, it felt like a large city was expanded to the entire world, because we were getting lights from everywhere now.

I also started to realize then that our breathing capacity was almost next to nothing.

Chris and I started were doing labored breathing when Harmony realized this. "Shoot, I forgot. Put these on and give on to Abby!"

Harmony formed and then threw us three bowties. Our coloring of each one was different, as mine was fully black, while Chris and one for Abby was red on the outside and white in the middle.

Chris was putting the bowtie on Abby, while I started to put on mine. All our airways started to get clearer, and we were finally able to breath normally. Some body parts ached, but I wasn't paying attention towards that since Abby was just waking up.

She groaned loudly and started blinking quickly. "What… What happened?"

"Whatever you do. Don't look down."

Abby completely ignored my warning and looked down. Currently, we were right on top of a huge body of water. This made Abby move back to her spot and yell, "What the heck is going on?!"

Dialga turned his head and looked at the three of us. "Seems like the little one is…" He paused and looked straight at me. "Who put a human on my back?!"

Everyone looked straight at me. Chris and Abby left their jaws hanging, and Harmony facepalmed. 'Uh, oh.'

I looked down and got dumbfounded what I saw. Instead of having paws, I had regular hands with skin.

I was human again.

Judging from my clothes I was wearing right now; it seems like I was still in my pajamas from the night I left. "Harmony!" I exclaimed at her. The bowtie must have done this!

"I hate using those things, but does it look like I have a choice?! The Council needs to talk to you as your true selves, and I don't want to be reprimanded twice because I was lying about who you are!" Harmony yelled at me, breathing deeply after. I scooched back a bit to wait for Harmony to calm down. "S-Sorry. I overreacted. Listen, I already told the Legendary and Mythical Pokémon that you were human, and the user of Turbo Boost."

"Why did you do that?" I asked. "Isn't that ruining you plan?"

Harmony chuckled. "Trust me. My plans were already with ruined when they first noticed you using Turbo Boost."

If it makes you feel better, I haven't learned to control Turbo Boost yet. Abby decided to take a deep stare right at me. "Manny… You look, um..." She couldn't put it into words.

"Messy?" I answered since that would be my first reaction towards myself. Abby was about to respond with an answer, but stopped because of what was happening next.

As we entered the upper atmosphere, I was getting a little nauseous. It might have been because it's been a while since I've been in an airplane, but I tried my best to shake off this feeling.

"Guys," Chris said to all of us. "I think we're here."

Dialga landed at a ramp that lead towards what looked like a courthouse. The three of us hopped off Dialga's back and deeply took a stare at the courthouse. Not to mention that it was floating a few thousand feet in the air, there was a sign on top the ramp written in Pokémon scribes.

**Hall of Legendaries**

**Trespassers will be Severely Prosecuted**

"On the bright side, we're not going to be counted as trespassers," I joked.

"That's not funny, Manny." Chris said while going up the ramp.

"What? I was making a joke!" I followed Chris with my usual human walking stance. Abby only shook her head and followed the two of us.

When me, Chris, and Abby got nearby the top of the ramp, Dialga looked at Harmony. "Mew, why of all existence did Laevo Turbo go into that human?"

"I don't know… But if you see him in battle, you'll be very surprised what he has in his limit." Harmony floated off towards the three of us and turned her head to wink at him. "See you there."

Dialga rolled his eyes and turned invisible to get with the other Council members.

* * *

**9:47 pm**

**Hall of Legendaries (Entrance)**

Huge doors and rooms for huge Pokémon. In other words, the size of this place definitely fits a house for a Legendary Pokémon like Dialga. And I think Chris spoke for myself. "Look at the size of this place!" He exclaimed.

Harmony floated past us, leading the way. "If I were you, I wouldn't be too surprised by the size of this place."

I looked around the hallway. Some of the paintings—all of which were huge as well—were probably about legends across the three Universes. The only one I recognize was the Lock Ness Monster. But instead of the monster itself, there was a Lapras with a long neck painted instead. I turned my attention to Harmony. "What do you mean by that?"

She stopped moving and turned around to look at the three of us. "The size of this place relates to their superiority over other beings. Especially to humans—since they don't have a good history with that species."

"I'm not sure whether to take that as an insult, or to pity them for not liking humans."

Harmony turned around and started moving again. "Do both then," she stated, shrugging after.

We kept on moving along the long hallways of this place—going through seemingly large rooms that made this courthouse larger than it seems. It honestly felt we were going in circles, so I would probably need to say something before I start getting dizzy. Luckily, Abby said the same question I was going to ask.

"Harmony, what exactly is the Council?"

"Well…" Harmony puts herself into thought for a few moments. "The Council is this group made of Legendary and Mythical Pokémon that decides on interdimensional problems. It's made of the creation trio—Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina—Arseus, since he's the leader of the Council, and three random Legendary or Mythical Pokémon for tiebreaking purposes only… It wasn't always that way, though."

Harmony stopped moving once we got to a long hallway with very few paintings. In the right side, plaques were placed inside a trophy case. The plaques showed all the members of the Council, including some other members who made an appearance for decision. In the bottom rank, there was one plaque that stood out to the three of us.

**Mew**

**Permanent Member: 3200 B.C. to 2016 A.D.**

**Cord Incident: 2016 A.D.**

"You used to be a part of this?!"

Harmony grinned. "I was always the tiebreaker before I decided to resign from my spot. I still remember when I was rewarded the spot after saving the world…"

Harmony started floating forward just before I said something that made her stop moving immediately. "Why does your plaque say, 'Cord Incident?'"

"What the?" Harmony said confused. She turned at the trophy case and looked at her plaque. "That's new! Although, I haven't looked at this thing for the past three years..." Harmony rushed over towards the door at the end of the hallway. "Wait over here!" She opened the large door and closed it twice as hard.

"What was that for?" Abby questioned. She walked over towards the door Harmony came in and tried to pull the handle. Neither doors budged a bit.

All of us sighed. "Guess we're waiting." I sat down on the left side, while the two Eevee sat in the other side. "Anyone have a story to pass the time?"

No response came from anyone. 'Great…'

"Alright then," I responded since no one had anything. "I might as well talk about how I met Cord."

* * *

**10:07 pm**

**Hall of Legendaries (Council Hallway)**

This storytelling would have gotten better if Cord were here with us… Nevertheless, I was able to keep the story entertaining with my stupid annotation about the story. "And that's how it happened three years ago."

Slow claps went around the room. It wasn't the exact sarcastic motion I was expecting, but hey, it's better than nothing.

"…Shouldn't have Harmony opened the door by now?" Chris looked at the door, which was still closed shut. "I think we should try to open the door again."

Abby sighed. "Chris, you and I tried doing that a few minutes ago, and the doors didn't budge an inch."

Chris looked at me and smirked. "Manny hasn't done it yet."

Technically speaking, the height of the doorknob looks like what any regular doors look like in my world. Abby and Chris need to go on two feet to even get a handle on the knob and use their strength to push the door. All I have to do was to turn the door know with one hand and push the door to the next room.

"It's worth a shot…" I went to the double doors and looked down at the doorknobs. Both knobs weren't budging when Abby and Chris were trying earlier, and they probably weren't going to move , there was no keyhole for picking any lock neither… I start looking around the room. Minus the trophy case and the few painting around, there wasn't anything I can use to break down the door.

But there was big enough hallway to get some speed.

'Hmm… That could work.'

I take a few steps back from the doors and look straight at Abby and Chris.

"Um, Manny," Abby said looking confused. "What are you doing?"

I moved my hand towards the side of the hallway. "My suggestion is to get out of the way."

Abby followed my advice and placed her body on the drywall. Chris took a few moments to process what I said, but once he realized what I was doing, he rushed over to where Abby was.

After taking a few deep breaths, I started running towards the door.

* * *

**Meanwhile:**

**10:08 pm**

**Council Meeting Room**

Harmony started pacing at the area between two tables trying to think carefully of what she was going to say next. Right beside her, the four permanent members of the Council—Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, and Arceus—were growing impatient with every second she was floating around. "Is something in your mind, Mew?" Palkia asked.

It was still ridiculous that the four of them kept calling Harmony by her Pokémon name, but she ignored her instinct to argue against the four most powerful beings in the world. "I just can't believe you decided to name our decision based on lies."

"It was not based on lies." Dialga stated, giving a glare after. "Darkrai made the announcement that Cord was either gone or he died out of unknown reasons."

"Yeah, well Darkrai is a liar! I saw Cord alive with my own two eyes!" Harmony yelled at them. "Whether you believe it or not is your—."

Thud.

Harmony stopped speaking when she heard a soft, peculiar sound. Is sounded like it was coming from the other side of the main door… "What was that?" She mumbled to herself.

"Mew!" Arceus yelled at her. "Pay attention!"

Harmony's trance of the door noise was taken off her as she looked back at the Council seating area. "Sorry about that. Where was I…? Oh, right." She cleared her throat. "Whether you believe it or not is your judgement, but the only thing I'm going to ask for might just answer all of our problems."

No one except Giratina was intrigued. "What exactly is that?"

"A rescue/capture mission." Arceus, Dialga, and Palkia groaned while Garatina said nothing. "Oh, come on!" She shouted since she too was getting impatient. "For once, can you four actually listen to me without any interruptions happening?!"

Thud!

Everyone looked at where the noise was coming from, which was at the door again. Silence shushed everyone in the room and all they did was stood silent. A few moments later, the Council turned their attention back to Harmony.

"…Let me say this again," she said breaking the ice. "I chose the two Eevee and the human because I know if they have a plan, they'll always execute it correctly."

"Okay…" Arceus tilted his head towards Harmony to give a glare. "If I told you to tell the team to disband, would you do it?"

"Yes, I—." Harmony paused herself to glance at Arceus. She knew where this was going. "Why did you say that?" she asked anyway.

"Mew…" Dialga got off his seat and walked toward her. He didn't want to admit it, but it was either going to be him or Arceus was going to do it—probably by yelling at her. Dialga sighed of defeat. "Space and time has been getting crazy since last week and the actions you did a month ago were unknown towards us… Until you told us about Manny, I mean, the human being here in this world." Harmony floated up towards Dialga's head, who was drooping down out of grief. "I'm going to ask you politely to disband this team and put back the human to Universe—."

"Ahh!"

The noise was coming from outside the room again and this time Arceus had enough. "What the hell is going on outside—."

The huge left door broke in half and fell towards the floor, leaving a human to fly right towards Harmony's and Dialga's direction. He landed just before Dialga's feet and groaned in pain shortly after. The two Eevee looked at the broken door, peeked at the human from the other room, and hid behind the other giant door.

"What… The fuck… Was that?" The Council looked at Harmony waiting for her response.

Harmony looked at the human and sighed. "That… is the power of Laevo Turbo."

* * *

**10:14 pm**

**Council Meeting Room**

Me being unconscious for about two and a half minutes was probably payback for breaking a—I don't know—thousand-pound door in half. I honestly didn't know what I was thinking when I gradually backed up towards halfway of the large hallway and started running towards the door immediately.

And from what I can vaguely remember before hitting the door, I apparently was screaming.

_Manny, wake up…_

A large groan came out of me before I slowly was able to open my eyes. Harmony was staring right at me. "Am I dead?" I said panting loudly.

"Quite the contrary… Did you use Turbo Boost?"

I was able to start moving my head around and what came out of Harmony's question was a confused face and a tilted head. "I don't think I used Turbo Boost…" I moved my head to look at the huge broken door on the floor. "Did I?"

"Ahem."

I turned my head to see… 'Damn it, the Council is right in front of me.' I jumped to the air to get me back up from the floor.

"Sorry about breaking the door," I said putting my hand behind my head and grinned.

Arceus sighed. "It's fine." He said straining his voice "I was wondering when I was going to replace the old door anyway."

Arceus might go ballistic right now, so Palkia interrupted. "Harmony, is this the human you were talking about?"

Harmony looked at the Council and cleared her throat. "Yes, this was the human I was talking about… Council, allow me to introduce Manny Anderson from Universe 1." Harmony pointed right at me. The Council was conversing to themselves while staring right at me.

Harmony punched me in the back for me to follow some instruction of courtesy. I started stammering out of confusion and decided to bow slightly with my hands on one another. "Nice to meet you… Sir?"

Arceus looked at me and sighed. "Rise." As I followed his instruction, Arceus stared at Harmony. "You know that changes nothing, Mew."

"What's he talking about?" I whisper to Mew.

"He wants us to disband the team and place you back in Universe 1."

I stared at the Council and tried to contain my anger. Dialga sat down to his chair when I said the words that sparked an outrage from Arceus.

"I'm not going to let you do that."

I could hear the gasps coming from Abby and Chris outside the room when Harmony jabbed me from the back again. One more hit from her, and my rib cage might break from the pressure here. "And why not?!" Giratina yelled.

"Because three years ago, your decision of bringing Cord to this world made me felt like he was actually gone. And when I truly thought he could be dead; I see him right in front of my face. I'm going to get Cord back from the Darkness or die trying." I storm off towards the other door but just stop to talk to Harmony. "Harmony… I knew what you were going to say this morning. I kinda figured it out when Cord used telepathy on me…"

The Council looked at me confused when Harmony turned around. "You know?"

I nodded while opening the door. After getting though the door, I turned around and looked at everyone—including Chris and Abby, who were looking at me confused.

"Cord is my fucking brother."

I slam the door and sit down on the carpet floor. Chris and Abby didn't even say a word towards me, and instead payed attention towards Harmony and the Council.

"Mew, what is he talking about?"

Harmony looked straight at the door and started grinning. "Looks like Manny got it right on the money…" She turned around with the grinning still with her. "I'll be glad to explain it. When humans from anywhere become Pokémon, their DNA must change, right?" Everyone nodded. "By replacing some parts that make a human, you can make a species of Pokémon out of nowhere without any 'magic'... There is a slight occurrence that happens with this.

"When the tweaking is finished, the body gets confused with what it currently is, and does the 'real-life evolving' you know. This rarely can make the DNA rearrange itself to be identical to someone else in the same species. It's about a… One in ten million shot."

Arceus started to get annoyed with the explanation. "Can you get to the point?" he tried to ask politely.

"I was just getting there. Cord came into the world as a Pikachu three years ago, and the variation—out of ten million—was 5,780,903. Manny came into Universe 3 as a Pikachu about a week ago and the variation he has… Is 5,780,903."

Abby and Chris finally stopped looking inside the Council room to look at each other. "Oh, my Arceus," they both said out loud.

Abby turned to me with a soft smile on her face. "Did you know about that?"

I don't know how, but I started smiling too. "Everything except the variation part. I actually figured it out by telepathy."

"Manny," Chris interrupted while still looking at the Council and Harmony. "I don't know why you keep on saying 'telepathy' when you know that's not a word."

"Exactly." Chris and Abby looked at me confused. "I actually put the pieces together when Chris first got confused with what telepathy was… 'Telepathy' here is how strong your bond is with a Pokémon, or even towards a human as well. Psychic types and the Lucario line have some weird ability to amplify their and another Pokémon's or human's thoughts if their bond is relative-like. That makes 'telepathy' possible."

Apparently while I was talking about that, the Council was deciding on something based on the facts on them. "Um, guys," Chris told us. "I think they made a decision right now."

Me and Abby peeked inside the room where the four Council members were standing up from their seats, while Harmony was only Pokémon sitting down in the small chairs. "We finally made a decision…" Arceus stated. "Christopher Chambers, Abigail Chambers, and Manny Anderson will be allowed to carry out the mission you have."

"Really?!" Harmony jumped out her chair to start floating around the four Pokémon out of celebration. The three of us also started celebrating as well…

"But on one condition." All four of us stopped moving and turned back into Arceus. "When you find the place and get there, a time limit will be placed. If the limit expires, I will be forced to teleport all of you back here, and Manny will have to leave. If you do succeed, Manny can stay until the morning, but must leave back into his original spot you pulled him out of."

Harmony looked at me outside the door, and to her surprise, I nodded. In a way, I was getting homesick, but I at least needed to get Cord out of the Darkness before I wanted to go home. Harmony extended her paw out. "Deal."

***Game File Saved***

**A/N: I'm going to be delaying Chapter 17 by at least a week because we are at the ****homestretch of this book!**


	19. Breaking In

**Chapter 17: Breaking In**

**1/2/20**

**10:40 pm**

**Library of Research**

Harmony decided to do a little showboating, as she made some weird trumpet noises while opening another giant door in the same hallway. Inside the room, a collection of books—around twenty-five hundred of them—were all placed neatly in shelves that surrounded the entire room. 'It had to be a library, didn't it…?'

Harmony floated towards the center of the rectangular room and turned around towards us. "Welcome to our library," She said whispering. "This room is for all the research we use for decisions on the Council."

Me, Abby, and Chris could barely make out what she said to us. "Harmony," I said in my normal, loud voice. "why are you whisper—."

Harmony immediately interrupted me by floating over towards me and placing one of her fingers on my mouth. "Shh… I don't want to wake up the librarian right now."

'There's a librarian here of all places?' I moved Harmony's finger out of my face to peek at who was on the right-side table. The creature—which was sleeping on top of the table—looked like a pale white baby with a half-star for a hat. I completely realized a few moments later that the "thing" had two yellow streamers attached to the back, and a familiar curve was on the creature's belly. 'This has to be a Pokémon, but which one?'

Abby and Chris decided to follow what I was doing and immediately pulled me away from my hiding spot once they realized what I was looking at. The two Eevee turned towards Harmony. "Jirachi's the librarian?!" Abby yelled at all of us using his whispering voice.

Oh, that's what the Pokémon was! "Yes, it is him Abby." Harmony confirmed the statement. "Surprised to see him again, Chris?"

"Again?" I said confused. "Chris, you've seen Jirachi before?!"

"Well… It's a very long story to explain." Chris decided to peek again to where Jirachi was, but to his surprise Jirachi wasn't even on the table. "Uh, oh. We might have a prob—."

Chris was turning towards the three of us when Jirachi literally came from above us and dropped right next to Chris' face. "Hi there!"

"Ahh!" Chris jumped back being startled, almost hitting a large bookshelf. "You gave me a heart attack, J!"

'Who's J?'

Harmony leaned close towards me. _J is Jirachi's nickname… Or at the very least what Chris calls him._

Chris slowly walked up Jirachi and gave a smile out of common courtesy. "Guys, this is J. I know him since… I saved his life a long time ago." Both me and Abby's eyes widened out of complete surprise and confusion.

"Yes, that's true," Jirachi said smiling. "It was actually Harmony's test for bring him here in the first place!" He started floating towards a blue book on the top shelf next to him to grab it. "We have a tradition for finding people like Chris." After flipping through some pages, Jirachi showed the three of us a picture of a shooting star crashing into a forest with a house nearby.

"Before that happens," Harmony said looking at the three of us, "we select a number of candidates before doing an 'emotional test' to each of them. To put it simply, a small Legendary or Mythical Pokémon—in Chris' case it was J here—would make it seem like they accidently crashed in the forest and got injured." Harmony paused herself to think about what she was going to say next. "Um… The situation that happened there was actually real."

Chris shuddered. "I somehow still remember that night… I was the only person to wake up in my house that night. Wearing my PJ's, I walked to the cold forest and saw J with a little Eevee trying to bite J here."

Harmony started smiling right at Abby for a few moments and started to focus on me. "J told me what happened that night, and Chris apparently had the heroics. He jumped right in front of the Eevee and took the bite that probably would hit J's foot." A wave of her tiny paw revealed underneath Chris' fur on his top left arm was a scar that was shaped like a crescent. I think Chris was as shocked as we were because his eyes widened the same time ours did.

"Anyway," Jirachi continued, "I helped get the Eevee off him and calm it down. Chris for some reason wanted to call me J because of the chance we might meet again… And he asked me a question."

Chris closed his eyes to try and remember what he said. "I said… 'Can you make this Eevee comfortable with me around her?'"

'It was a girl?' My face went into shock realizing something. 'Wait…'

"I decided to call that a wish and alter the memories of both Chris and the Eevee's memory to… know how to live with each other, basically. I went back towards Harmony and told her he's the one."

I finally decided now was the time to interrupt. "I don't mean to spoil anything, but if I had to take a guess, was the Eevee… Abby?"

Jirachi turned to me and gave a little smirk. "Ahh, the other human Harmony sent to this world, and somehow the only being that had the guts to testify against the Council… Words get by fast here." He floated up to place the book back where it was and looked back. "You would be one-hundred percent correct!"

"So J!" Harmony said clapping at the same time. "Now that the backstory is done, we need your help location a book from here. The serial number is 25631-97048."

Now it was Jirachi's turn to be surprised, as his eyes immediately went to Harmony. "That book?" he responded. Harmony nodded trying to give her best fake smile. "Well…" His head tried to wrap around the thought of looking at whatever the book was. "F-Fine."

Jirachi floated towards the backend of the library and started scrolling through the bookshelf there. Once he found the actual book, he pulled it and caused the self to sink inside the wall, revealing a secret hallway. The Pokémon started racing down the hallway, and Harmony—who was right beside us still—looked at me. "Hope you got your running shoes on."

"I'm barefoot, Harmony." I said in a serious tone. "What are you going to do, magically form shoes on my feet?" She waved again her same hand from last time, and a pair of Air Jordan XXXIII was slipped on my feet. "Why do I even ask?" I shook my head sighing and started running.

The hallway we all went through had blue tinted color lights provided by the view of the sun. I sure didn't take any mind of it until I was about three steps away from the room Jirachi was. Around that moment, Abby paused herself to look at one of the glass windows for some reason.

Meanwhile, me, Harmony, and Chris finally arrived at the room where Jirachi was just standing completely stunned. Three podiums were on the center of the room facing our direction. The left one had only dust collecting there, while the other two had books that made the room feel like a study room.

"No, no, no!" Jirachi yelled and started immediately floating toward the empty podium. "Someone stole the book you were looking for…!" He turned to realize that Harmony's face wasn't really being straight to him. "You know who did this then, Harmony?"

Harmony nodded. "It was Darkrai. I honestly didn't put it together when he ran into me while making his getaway. What I'm wondering is how did he get in there in the first place?"

"Hey guys!" Abby yelled to the four of us. "I think that's how Darkrai got in here." We found her looking at a broken window that had a large hole making a large gust moving toward's Abby direction. Even with the hole being far from us, I could feel the cold air chilling down my entire body.

"That would be why it's so cold here…" I mumbled.

"Come to think of it," Chris said looking at the podiums again, "these three books are separated from the library… What was these books about?"

A solemn face ran over Jirachi's face. "The books here are basically the encyclopedia of each universe, ranging from cities and culture to military strategies and weapons. The left book Darkrai stole…" Jirachi paused himself to sigh. "Was about Universe 1."

* * *

**11:59 pm**

**Sky (En Route to New Location)**

I know Cord using Psychic on me earlier felt weird, but Harmony using Psychic on my human form felt even weirder. In fact, I think it's the first time that Abby and Chris had someone use Psychic on them while not trying to slam them into a surface. "Manny," Harmony reminded, "you know you can take off the bowtie since we're back to regular air."

"I know," I said. "But I'm wondering first about that time limit you agreed on…"

"Hmm…" Harmony was for some reason staring into nothing while moving along. "Oh sorry! I was lost in thought for some reason! Okay, I don't know why it took long to decide, but the time limit we all have is one hour and fifteen minutes from when we arrive at the place… With one condition, though."

The three of us looked at Harmony at the same time wondering what she was talking about. "You never said anything about a condition for the time limit."

"That is true, but this part has to do with me… When one-hour remaining hits, I have to separate from you three and get out of here as soon as I can." Harmony grinned as she just revealed this to us.

"What?!" All three of us yelled at her.

"Why would you say that now?" I asked her.

"I'm sorry guys! My mind completely forgot until Manny just reminded me now… Anyway, I wanted to give you this." Harmony threw a stopwatch to me with the time already set on it. "That's what keep you guys in track of the time."

I sighed. "I… Let's do this." The bowtie on me was thrown away from my hand to who knows where.

"Manny!" Harmony yelled at me. "That bowtie was 30 Poké on the—!"

I couldn't hear anything Harmony was saying, probably because my ears were being pulled. "I can't hear you," I mouthed while pointing at my head. The new ears finally popped out of the top of my head, having yellow and black fur on it. "That's better." Harmony was going to repeat what she was saying but gave up because the moment passed.

A lighting-shaped tail sprouted out my rear proportionate to my body now, which finally gave my chance to wag my tail again. "Wait, how exactly are we going to find Cord when we get in here?" Chris said while yellow fur started sprouting around my arms and legs. The shoes I was wearing evaporated beneath my skin as three-toed, yellow furry feet was finally revealed to the other three Pokémon.

Harmony stopped moving to turn at Chris' direction. "It's kind of a coincidence, but when I was captured for trespassing, the group taking me to the detention center passed a room full of Pokémon that what I could make out was talking about Dark Pinging. And since they left the door open, I was able to see a vent that's big enough for small Pokémon to fit in." My hands started getting smaller, becoming paws with yellow fur. "So if we can get to the vent that leads to that room…"

"A surprise attack or distraction can be used so we can Dark Ping Cord?" I responded. At this point, all yellow fur finally reached everywhere except my head.

"That's what I'm thinking of doing right now…" Harmony said looking at me. "I think I should help you with that." Harmony stopped all of us to start push my head down. Everything in my surrounding started getting bigger… Wait, why am I saying that? I was shrinking!

My entire body for some reason was getting back into its comfortable state—probably because of me being a Pikachu for about a week—which kinda weird me out. But I ignored that feeling when Harmony stopped shrinking me and tapped my cheek.

Once we got moving again, the fur finally went past my head, causing my face to change. For starters, the hair on my head started sinking in, leaving only the tips of my head sticking out—creating what I assumed looked like a cowlick. My eyes widened, keeping the same eye color, and nose shrank to make a black dot. I was a Pikachu again.

"It's good to be like this again!" I yelled, creating an echo.

"Pardon the interruption Manny," Abby said moving slightly ahead of me, "But I think we're here…"

In the distance, a floating landscape was seen on top of a large body of water—probably a sea or ocean. When we moved slightly closer, a building that had sixteen floors came into view right on top of the weird enough landscape. Coincidentally, some guard Pokémon were laying around the outside waiting for someone here to break the trespassing limits.

Their eyes, of course, looked like it was on fire.

"This is definitely the place," Chris confirmed by nodding after. "Kinda obvious we can't just walk in the front door, so how are we going to sneak in?"

Harmony grabbed all of us at the same time to turn invisible and dove towards the bottom of the floating landscape. Excess dust and dirt were falling off to the ocean, which partially revealed a large metal tube sticking out.

"The old garbage chute." Harmony revealed. "Cord told me about this being discontinued because of 'pollution reasons.'" she giggled. "Like if that hasn't stopped anyone… Anyway, I think this leads to an air vent."

"You think?" I repeated. "It sounds like you're making this plan all based on luck."

Harmony smiled. "Of course I'm making this based on luck. Everything we do in our lives has luck with it. Now just for saying that…" Harmony made me visible again and got rid of her Psychic effect on me. "You're first!"

She tossed me up in the air, breaking through the dirt and dust, and forced me to use my paws and feet to brace myself on the tube. "Harmony!" I yelled. "What was that for?!"

Harmony started laughing out of my yelling. "I did get you up there, so you're welcome! And I think you should start the clock now…"

I realized that the stopwatch was dangling off my small neck, causing me to shake my head and sigh. "Fine." I used one hand to hit the start button.

***Time Started***

**Objectives:**

**Find the Book About Universe 1!**

**Save Cord from Peril!**

**Capture Darkrai!**

* * *

**1/3/20**

**12:12 am**

**Darkness Headquarters (Air Vents; 1F)**

***1 Hour, 8 Minutes Remaining; 8 Minutes Before Harmony Separates***

'How… Is Harmony so lucky!?'

Turns out she hit the air vent idea right on the money, making her, me, Abby, and Chris go through the weird maze of the air vents. I had to lead the way since Harmony threw me first, causing me to have little to no clue to where we're going. Fortunately, Harmony has been talking to me telepathically where the room could be… Emphasis on the "could."

I honestly believe this mission is really going to be based on luck.

"I'm getting impatient right now," I mumbled to myself.

"What do you mean by that?" Abby asked me. "I know it's uncomfortable for you and Harmony to walk here." She was saying that because both our bodies were close to hitting the top of the vent—and creating that noise might ruin the element of surprise.

We had to keep our heads low, even though my ears were already scraping the metal. "You say that like you and Chris are uncomfortable as well…" I said in a sarcastic tone but stopped because of what was ahead of us. Four lasers were moving down blocking our path. "Are you kidding me?" I whispered. "This is the fourth laser wall! Harmony."

"I got it." Everyone ducked so Harmony to pass through, and she did—while also trying to not bump into us nor the vent. With both paws, Harmony formed a pink, rectangular Light Screen and placed it in the direction the lasers came from. Basically, Harmony's Light Screen acted like a "blocker" which allowed us to pass through the wall without triggering the alarm. Once we all got out, Harmony removed the Light Screen without a problem for us. "How many more times left I'm going to use Light Screen? I'm almost out."

"It depends on how many times the writer needs to keep this chapter long enough…" Chris reminded us.

Hey! I-I… Oh, screw it.

Like if it was a coincidence, a bright light shined in front of all our faces, revealing the end of the air vent. What came into view was an entire room full of computers surrounding a podium, a camera, and what looked like a page flipper.

In case you were wondering, the book was right on top of the podium.

"At least we found the book room," I said to the others. "Which one would you think is the main computer?"

"What's a computer?" Abby whispered to me.

I ignored the question when Harmony barged in. "Everyone is going through that computer in the middle." She pointed at where an Emolga was sitting in. "That's probably it… I'd step back if I were you."

When me and Abby followed Harmony's instruction, she immediately formed a blue fireball from her left paw. 'That's Will-O-Wisp!' She opened a flap in the vent and threw the fireball toward a mounted camera, causing the item to go on fire. A fire alarm momentarily went off, causing chaos and panic.

I could even hear someone say, "This is what we get for making a fire hazard today!"

Everyone in the room evacuated leaving the door empty. "Let's do this." I used Iron Tail to chop off the metal end of the vent so we can finally access the room. Harmony floated to remove the book from the podium and destroyed the camera and page flipper.

"How are we going to Dark Ping Cord here?" Abby said looking at me. Judging from the main computer there must be a main program to use Dark Pinging.

"I have an idea." I jumped out the vent to the main computer chair and started scrolling the files.

Abby and Chris closed the door once we got out of the vent and went to me. "I hope you know what you're doing, Manny."

'I know, I know, I know—.'

"Gotcha." I reached a computer file called dark_ . "What do you know, these Pokémon use coding here…" I activated the program and started typing on the keyboard:

_g++ dark_ -o dark_ping_

_.a/dark_ping_

A bunch of characters started scrolling down the page, causing Abby and Chris to be extremely confused. "Um," Chris said, "did it work or not?"

Harmony meanwhile teleported the book back to the Council room and joined the three of us. "Oh, it worked alright."

Another text popped up.

_Whom you would you like to Dark Ping?_

After what Cord said to all of us a few days I decided to input the only option:

_Darkness Special Agent Division Graduate #23_

A map popped up soon after showing only a blue dot. "But on the legend, there should be a red and blue dot." I mumbled. "So that means…"

"Cord's right on top of us."

* * *

**Meanwhile:**

**12:16 pm**

**Darkness Headquarters 13F**

Bisharp woke up with a start. It knew something was wrong, although it couldn't put to why.

It perhaps was only just a feeling, he thought. He got out of bed to open a closet nearby. Now why would a Pokémon have a closet? After all, every Pokémon don't feel ashamed by not wearing clothes. That's because Bisharp didn't use the closet for that purpose.

Inside the closet was Cord—who was restrained for moving anywhere.

"You know…" he said grunting after. "Would it really kill you to loosen these things sooner or later?"

Bisharp ignored his question and sat down on a chair. "…You feel it, don't you?"

Cord tilted his head. "What?"

"Someone in this building activated your Dark Ping without my permission. Let me ask again, do you feel it too?!" Cord kept silent about it, trying his best to not reveal anything. "Damn it." He charged at Cord and started to choke him. "Answer!"

"Y-Yes…" Cord managed to squeak out. After a few moments, Bisharp let go of Cord, causing him to gasp of air and cough.

Bisharp meanwhile decided to call mission control. "Sound the alarm." It then proceeded to Cord. "It's time to take your medicine…"

Cord gulped, knowing what's next. If anyone from his group came to rescue him…

They'll be in for a big surprise.

* * *

**12:18 am**

**Darkness Headquarters (Detention Center; 1F)**

***1 Hour, 2 Minutes Remaining***

Harmony already separated from the group since her time limit was almost up but decided to do one more thing. Right now, she was moving around the empty center trying to find the room which had a certain Pokémon.

"Ugh…" A groan came out from somewhere. Harmony turned to her side and found the Pokémon she was looking for.

It was a Houndour, who was asleep somehow. Harmony opened the cell door and shook the Houndor's shoulder. "Hey… Wake up, Phoenix."

The Houndour—which Harmony named Phoenix—groggily opened her eyes. "Hello?" she responded. "W-Where am I?" Her vision was still impaired, so she couldn't realize the Pokémon right in front of her was a Mew.

"Nice to see you awake Phoenix. As for where you are… I don't think you would want to know right now."

Phoenix was completely confused with how Harmony knew her name. She decided to rub her eyes, before realizing what was her paws. "How do I have—?!"

Harmony shushed her. "I can't let anyone know I'm here… Let's get out of here, shall we?"

She touched Phoenix's head and used Teleport.

***Game File Saved***


	20. How to Fight Against Yourself!

**Chapter 18: How to Fight Against Yourself!**

**1/3/20**

**12:20 am**

**Darkness Headquarters 2F**

***1 Hour Remaining***

I was kinda wondering when the first sign of us being spotted would happen, and my question would be responded with an alarm echoing throughout the halls and some of the lights turning red. I could hear Chris groaning from the blaring alarm that deafened our ears. "Please tell me that's the 'don't come in this area' alarm and not the 'oh shit, someone figured out we're here' alarm," I said while the three of us were quickly trying to find the stairs. To be honest, this place felt like its own mystery dungeon—if the layout for each floor would be the same every time you walk in it.

"I would want to believe it's the first option," Chris said trying to yell over the alarm, "but we can't do that now! Let's just hope we don't run into anyone."

He turned right and stopped himself from moving because a group of Pokémon with fire eyes were staring right at the three of us. "There they are!" one yelled. "Charge!"

'He just had to jinx it, didn't he?' Fighting obviously was a bad idea because we were highly outnumbered, so we only had one option left for us.

"Run!" Abby yelled. All of us turned the other direction and started to follow Abby's instruction with a bit of urgency…

I guess you could say this next part is gonna be a bit comical. You know how sometimes when protagonists go to another pathway and the people chasing them take the same hallway the protagonist were going—even though they saw the person change direction?

Following Abby, she tried her best going through multiple hallways in the seemingly huge floor, causing her to open a random room door and she pulled us in there. Soon after, the same thing I just mentioned earlier happened. "How did…" I questioned pointing outside the door. I eventually sighed of defeat. "Never mind…"

"Alright," Chris said trying his best to break my and Abby's silence, "how are we going to find the stairs now?"

"Well…" Abby started looking around the room. The room somehow looked like a traditional Japanese room, with the floor, inside doors, and the walls being bamboo. "We can take some items from here, I guess."

The three of us started moving around the room, scouring for items. There were two closet doors, which I decided to take the right one, while Chris took the left closet. Inside my closet was a Reviver Orb, Sleep Seed, and two Oran Berries.

The stairs somehow fit inside the closet leading to the next floor. "Alright!" I turned to Abby and Chris. "Guys I found the—." I immediately paused myself to look at the area where Chris opened to. There weren't any beds in the other room here, which made me think that this was like a "employees lounge" or something like that. As it turned out, Chris opened a door to a bedroom, not another closet.

In there was the Swampert we all faced in Idle Island, wide awake.

Chris—who was still in front of the Swampert—cursed silently. "Get out of here, Manny!" he yelled.

I didn't know why, but I decided to activate Turbo Boost. Not for fighting, of course—I know I would be in a disadvantage—but for an unconventional reason. An idea somehow popped on my head, so I decided to do it by approaching Abby. I kneeled to her height and used both my paws to transfer my energy and deposit my energy to and from Abby. Her eyes turned blue and she started blinking momentarily after.

"What the?" She said confused. Abby looked down to her brown paws, which was showing bits of electric sparks. "How is this happening?" Her eyes started to look at mine.

"I needed to talk to you privately, and I guess this idea worked…" I paused myself to figure out what I was going to say next. "I… h-have." Damn it, why can't I say it?! "I lo—."

"Manny, stop." Abby paused me from finishing my sentence when she interrupted me. "I kinda figured it out back in Misty Mountain…"

I sighed in defeat. 'Looks like I'm going to get friend-zoned now…'

"When we get out of here—and I know we will—let's talk about this, okay?" Abby tried her best to give me a smile.

I couldn't really do anything about it now, I got back to my height. "Alright," I nodded. "I wish you luck!"

I let go of Abby—who froze back into time—and started going up the stairs.

You know, I just realized right now how I was able to get through the eleven floors without even stopping for a break…

Abby gave me hope.

And just until recently have I used hope to fight my way up.

* * *

**Meanwhile:**

**12:42 am**

**Council Meeting Room**

The lights were dim, a human projector was somehow playing towards a wall, and a digital map was being shown in the middle of the room.

Yup, the Council—including Jirachi—were having what looked like a movie night. "Oh, come on!" Jirachi yelled. "You guys are hoarding all the popcorn!" A red bowl about twenty times a human height was filled with popcorn, and multiple piles of popcorn was being pulled out to be eaten by Arceus, Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina. Jirachi meanwhile already finished eating his popcorn bag, but never got any refills like the Council did.

And coincidentally, Harmony teleported right in front of the projector, causing a large groan from the audience. "What the?" She floated from the projector's view to see a certain Pikachu fighting a group of Darkness soldiers…

"Welcome back, Harmony!" Jirachi shouted. Dialga suddenly cleared his throat, and slightly pointed at Arceus—who was staring right at him. "Oh—right. Ahem, Mew. Welcome back, Mew… What took you so long to get here?"

Harmony started thinking to what she was going to say, because what she really did was the option no one wanted to hear. "I-I got sidetracked… Never mind that! Why are you guys watching Manny like some form of entertainment?"

"Serves him right for watching us as 'entertainment,'" Arceus grumbled.

Palkia quickly looked at Harmony. "What he meant was that we actually wanted to watch the current situation that was going on… And I guess we're enjoying it as well."

Giratina showed Harmony the map they were looking at while starting to eat the popcorn again. "The thirteenth floor has two strange Pokémon that I'm pretty sure you would know… The first one is giving off electrical and psychic energy from that floor."

Harmony thought for a second. "An Electric and Psychic type… Wait, Cord's the only one who has those two together!"

"Yeah," Dialga interrupted, "it's Cord. However, I fear that he may have succumbed to become one of those Darkness soldiers again… Anyway, we can't really figure out who's the second object. He or she is really hiding their energy."

"It has to be Darkrai, right?" Harmony said looking at everyone.

"Nope." Jirachi said. "Darkrai wouldn't hide his energy. He's boastful that way…" All the Council looked at each other, feeling that they know something. "Um… Is something wrong?"

Arceus looked at the two of us. "I think we know who it is."

* * *

**12:50 am**

**Darkness Headquarters 13F**

***30 Minutes Remaining***

I sighed as I passed by fainted Pokémon who decided to take the sacrifice of battling me but lost. "This is getting ridiculous. How many Pokémon are going to face me before I find Bisharp or Darkrai?" I find myself pausing at a door because of something calling to me.

_Anyone…_

"Cord." I mumbled to myself. After slightly opening the door next to me, I see Bisharp sitting on a chair, listening to a report coming from a soldier. And if you're wondering about Cord…

Why don't you talk to him in the corner of the room, while his eyes were on fire?

"The Eevee are being persistent, as they fended off some of our fighters and Swampert." What do you know! Abby and Chris are doing as well as I am! "As for Manny, he somehow got rid of 45% of our forces here…"

'Either that Pokémon is lying, or damn, I'm doing good now!'

Bisharp, however, grumbled. "Tell the surrounding areas there's been a breach in the building, and to send reinforcements." Before the Pokemon left the call, Bisharp slammed his hand on the arm of the chair. "Leave Manny to me!"

A sound effect from the communicator meant that the call finished, and Bisharp looked at Cord. I closed the door before anyone noticed and I sat on the floor. "What am I going to do now…"

_You could enter the door to see both of us._

I immediately groaned after realizing that was Cord. 'Looks like Bisharp got complete control of him.' After a few seconds of breathing, I stood up from the floor to get my grip on the doorknob… 'Just in case.'

I formed an Electro Ball on my hand and threw it when I opened the door. As it turned out, Cord already knew what was going to happen, so he blocked the Electro Ball from hitting anywhere. If that weren't worse, Cord immediately used Psychic so I couldn't move anywhere they wouldn't want me to go.

Bisharp afterward smirked. "I think you can enter now…"

After a moment of me cursing silently, I slowly started walking into the room, where it automatically shut itself shut. Let's see… Cord's Psychic felt more powerful than the time he used it in Weird Woods. So either it had to be the growth of level for him or…

'Cord has something that upgrades his special attack.'

I finally stopped moving and looked at him. "Why do I think you're not surprised to run into me again?" I said with a smirk. Bisharp didn't respond with a single word. "What? You're giving me the silent treatment?"

"He's not talking because I'm talking for him…" Cord said behind me. "Personally, I actually wanted to meet you because we didn't finish that fight earlier." He started walking around me giving a slight chuckle. "However with you and Cord being here, I think a special idea just came up." I started snickering a bit. "Something wrong?"

I almost started laughing, but slowly stopped because of the two staring at me. "Sorry," I said chuckling a bit, "It sounded like Cord was referring himself to the third person." The laugh I made after slowly diminished again because of the seriousness in the room. So much for me pointing out illeism…

A few moments later, Bisharp jumped out of his chair and nodded at Cord. "This was the idea."

Cord immediately charged at me and punched me in the gut area from Weird Woods, sending me flying to the somehow hard wall. "Same spot… Same effectiveness." I said groaning after. After me shaking my head to focus, I took a deep breath and started using Quick Attack.

Bisharp and controlled Cord just stood in the middle, waiting for me to stop circling them. I eventually decided to attack Bisharp first with an Iron Tail, but Cord blocked Bisharp's attack for him and used Psychic to pin me on a closet door.

To make things worse for me, Cord's eyes glowed for a second dark, making his Psychic even stronger than the last time. "Cord…" I said while my voice was straining. "If Dark type moves get inserted to possessed, Cord has Nasty Plot, right?"

Bisharp or Cord didn't listen to me, and they decided run into me breaking the closet like door and revealing Bisharp's bedroom.

In a way, it was kinda normal like mine, only having a few items lying around on the floor or shelves. The closet doors were opened, having broken restrains on it. Probably what kept Cord from escaping…

As I groaned back up, my very first sight was a seed that had a certain glow upon it… My mind immediately called it a Sleep Seed.

Cord started putting me in a chokehold and raised me in the air. "The Cord you know is gone… So are you, and eventually those two Eevee." With a few seconds of this physical attack, I started becoming in and out of being unconscious, with me barely keeping my eyes open.

"Don't…" I squeaked out hardly, "You... Touch her…" A terrible idea came upon me as I slowly started moving my fist to Cord's chest, causing him to laugh. He started to move his other paw to catch it from going anywhere. "L-Leavo!" I blurted out. Everything started moving in slow motion again, making me finally have the chance to simply touch Cord's soft belly with my fist.

Cord gave the expression of him being launched in the air, and slowly let me go from his grip, causing me to drop and gasp for air. Bisharp's eyes widened as Cord slowly made the motion of cringing forward while starting to move back.

I, meanwhile, was still getting my air back. "Okay…" I said coughing after, "Get the Sleep Seed." Grabbing the seed, I jumped into the air with Turbo Boost still activated and make him swallow the Seed still in midair… I couldn't do anything with Bisharp, because he somehow can reach my speed even with Turbo Boost.

I dropped to the floor when I deactivated Turbo Boost, causing Bisharp to turn in my decision. "What the hell did you just do?" it asked. I knew Bisharp wasn't about Turbo Boost, since he saw that a few days ago...

I looked at the area where Cord landed, and noticed a tiny bubble near Cord's nose, inflating and deflating with every breath he takes. A chuckle came out of my mouth when I realized Cord was fast asleep. "Looks like until Cord wakes up, it's gonna be you versus—." A large sting happened in my arm which made me groan in pain. When I looked at it, Bisharp's hand was there with some type of syringe on my body. "What did you…" I said with slow and slurred speech.

My body forced me to collapse on the floor, barely making myself awake. "Say goodnight, Manny…" Bisharp said.

Soon after, my entire body went unconscious.

* * *

**Meanwhile:**

**12:55 am**

**Council Meeting Room**

"No!" Harmony screamed while tossing her popcorn bag in the air. "Bisharp just killed Manny!"

"Oh, please," Dialga responded sarcastically. "Manny's too important of a Pokémon to be killed by an injection… Camera!" A few buzzing sounds went in Morse Code, confused of what Dialga was going to ask. "I need you to move to Pocket Universe 5467, section A-62." The camera started moving out of the building and zooming out the world.

Arceus looked at Dialga extremely confused. "What's the Grey Area have to do with this?" he asked.

"Grey Area?" Jirachi said floating over to the Council. "There's nothing in the Library called the Grey Area."

"That's because it's supposed to be top secret, Jirachi." Harmony said to him. "Then again, I haven't heard anything about it…"

Dialga sighed. "It's a long explanation… I think Cord should tell you."

The camera finally zoomed in a grey scenery with some sparks showing out in the distance. When the camera moved forward, an Alolan Raichu was fighting something while a Pikachu was asleep. "Cord's alive?!" Harmony yelled.

"Not exactly."

* * *

**12:56 am**

**?**

***24 Minutes Remaining***

'Am… Am I dead?'

No, that doesn't make any sense, Manny. How are you talking to yourself then?

I let out a large groan towards the air before slowly waking myself up. The scenery everywhere was grey. The sun was grey, the sky was grey…

Hell, even the Pikachu with fire eyes looking straight at me was grey!

"…Why did I have to think about that?" I asked myself before looking behind me. Two Alolan Raichu—one entire grey as well and one normal—were fighting against each other, exchanging punches. A faint curse coming from the regular one, made me quickly realize who it was. "Cord!" I yelled.

Cord blocked the attack from the other Alolan Raichu and looked at me. "Manny!" Cord yelled.  
"What are you doing here?"

"I should ask the same question to you." My ears twitched, causing me to duck toward the floor. The other Pikachu fired an Electro Ball at me and was about to launch another one again. "Hold on!" I charged at the other Pikachu to give it an Iron Tail swipe just to give a distraction. Soon after, I launched a Thunderbolt to keep it away from me. "What the heck is this?"

"Bisharp injected you, right?" Cord said turning his head before attacking again. When he peeked again, I gave him a slow nod, which made him sigh. "The Pikachu over there… is yourself if you turn yourself in to the Darkness."

I took a closer look at the Pikachu to see if it matches me, when I suddenly realized grey sparks was coming out of its paws. "Shit. Leavo!" Turbo Boost was immediately activated, and I moved backwards to dodge the punch coming from shadow me… Yeah, I said it. We spent forty seconds doing what looked like an MMA match, before I decided to drop kick my other, which froze him in time now. I went to Cord to mimic Turbo Boost on him. "Explanation. Now." I said to him when his eyes turned blue.

Cord looked around for a few seconds before turning to me. "This place is called the Grey Area. I don't know how they got here, but I at least know this is the place where the Darkness makes the soldier's you were probably facing."

My expression from that became neutral since I didn't know how to feel. "You're telling me… The way they make fighters is by facing yourself?"

Cord nodded. "Yeah… The fighter would lose against himself, and that makes a Darkness Graduate become a soldier." Cord gulped soon after. "My shadow self is too strong now… I think I only have one move left."

The feeling I got from Cord's statement wasn't pretty. "I thought you said if you got yourself killed here your darkness side takes over."

"Not if I kill it at the same time!"

I made a solemn expression. 'It's too risky…'

_Trust me, Manny… No fear._

Judging from Cord time in doing this, I must fight both my shadow and Cord's shadow for about a minute.

"No fear!"

Turbo Boost was deactivated while my shadow was rolling down to the ground, still having felt the same kick I gave about a second ago. Cord started collecting his energy while I charged at his shadow, giving him an Electro Ball to thrust at its chest. Somehow, it got the reaction to grab the Electro Ball and use his Nasty Plot-powered Psychic to launch me to my shadow self. A large amount of pain was released from me when my other used Iron Tail to smack me on the floor.

After a quick tussle, I launched shadow me with a Thunderbolt before quickly using Turbo Boost to get on Cord's side. What happened next was a back and forth movement as I deflected each attack coming from both shadows, praying at the same time this entire defence would go smoothly…

And yet, I kept on repeating to myself "no fear" ranging from a mumble to a shout.

The Pikachu and Raichu finally caught on to what me and Cord was doing and decided to coordinate in one final attack. Both charged at me, sending a fear of something bad was going to happen. I decided to use both my arms to block the burning sensations, coming from the Electro Ball from my shadow, and the close-range Volt Tackle coming from Cord's shadow. I didn't know how long they were planning on keeping the pain, but it was really working.

"Now, Manny! Final Explosion!"

I barely broke through as Cord's explosion started, making me run for my life. After a few seconds, I suddenly realized something stupid. "Why didn't I use Turbo Boost?" I said quickly. "Why didn't I use Turbo Boost? Why didn't I use—?!"

My vision went black as just before Cord's explosion hit me.

***Game File Saved***


	21. So Long Hero

**Chapter 19: So Long Hero**

**1/3/20**

**1:00 am**

**Darkness Headquarters 15F**

***20 Minutes Remaining***

After Cord's idea of killing my and Cord's shadow, I for some reason could feel a faint, soft touch coming from my left cheek. Wonder where that's coming from…

"Keep it coming..." someone said, even though I could barely make it out. That same touch became harder to feel like someone softly tapped my face. My right eye peeked open and the first thing I noticed was an eyeball on fire. As if no one saw me, I closed my eyes again, knowing I made it out of the Grey Area…

'Wait, where's Cord? I-I can't feel him anywhere.'

"Again!"

The attack got even harder, waking my entire body up now. I sighed mentally. 'I guess I can't worry about Cord for now since what was going on.'

"Finish!"

I was being attacked, and I couldn't move.

The final attack hit my pressure point from the gut, causing me to open my eyes and gasp for air. Since whoever's there knows I'm awake, I finally looked around to where I was. Metal restrains were blocking me from using my arms, legs, and even my tail from moving. Trust me, I tried…

"…How did he get out of the Grey area so quickly?"

I finally looked in front of me and noticed Bisharp, and his hand was pressing on my belly. Behind him, a black, shadow-like Pokémon was staring at me with his cold blue eyes.

Darkrai…

"Are you done bullying me around, Bisharp?" He stared right at me before backing a few steps, still giving a stern face. "…Surprised, aren't you?" I said breaking the dark silence around me.

"Bisharp," Darkrai said moving forward. "go get 23… I'm going to have a little talk…"

Bisharp nodded. "Yes sir…" He took a few steps before reaching the door… Suddenly, Bisharp quickly turned around to fire a Dark Pulse at me and started running.

I, meanwhile, took all the damage, which made a bruise in my shoulder. "You should learn how to control him…" I joked.

Darkrai chuckled as he moved forward to me. "I actually wanted him to do that…" he said with a smirk soon after. "That was probably the fastest time I've seen someone get out of the Grey Area in a long time… Explain how you got out."

A grin came out of my mouth. "I'm flattered… But I'm in no position to talk, no?" My head moved around to show the restrains on me.

He rolled his eyes. "You will talk." His eyes start glowing red. "Whether you want to or not."

My eyes started closing and opening at will. "What are you…" I yawned and somehow closed my eyes to start sleeping. Darkrai touched me in the head and momentarily after and started projecting a nightmare that always hate seeing every night. I don't really want to explain the dream fully, only that it was about Cord being found in the real-world dead and me being arrested for it...

I woke up a few moments after me screaming, which made Darkrai jump back. "Ass! You're a fucking ass!" I said to him for seeing my privacy.

Darkrai meanwhile took a few steps back to sit on a chair… "You and Cord are human?" He said slowly. A large gulp came over my mouth when he said that, causing him to smirk. "That would explain why Cord didn't know anything when he arrived…"

"You're wrong. I'm the only human in this team. Cord's never been a human, and never will be." After a few moments of thinking, Darkrai looked up to me and sorta took the lie I told him.

"Okay…" He said moving his head up to me. "Let's say you are the only human here… How long have you been in Universe 3?"

"An entire week." I said playing along to this. My tail starts showing bits of silver as I gather my strength to use Iron Tail.

Darkrai stands up and starts pacing around. "If you been in this world for a week, what makes you think you have the guts to stand against me?" He asked turning at me and giving a squint.

'Jig's up!' I fully made an Iron Tail to break all the restrains with one swoop. 'Leavo!' Turbo Boost was activated, and I launched myself to give a Quick Attack…

I thought the attack would hit—because he wasn't moving—but I ended up going through Darkrai's entire body. As my landing approached, a cold feeling went down my spine as Darkrai launched me to the door perpendicular to me. "Great, he can be faster than Turbo Boost…" I mumbled to myself while deactivating Turbo Boost.

As I slid down to the floor, Darkrai gave a quick chukle before folding folding his arms and watch myself get back up. "If it makes you feel better, I almost forgot about your Leavo, whatever it's called." He said floating into the air. "You want another shot? I'll see you in the roof." Darkrai zoomed to the next floor, almost breaking the sound barrier…

A large groan came from my mouth as I now felt the aftereffects of Darkrai's full-on blow… My eyes turned to next to me when I noticed an Oran Berry, a paper with some writing on it, and a pen. A gave a quick chuckle before groaning. "Thank you, Harmony…" I said starting to eat the berry.

_Manny, I have an idea that might help you defeat Darkrai… Write down a song you find amazing in your opinion._

As I finished up the berry, I slowly wrote down my answer so they can understand how terrible my handwriting is. I took a deep breath when I exited the door to start running.

The paper and pen meanwhile, slowly faded back to where it came from…

* * *

**Meanwhile:**

**1:08 am**

**Council Meeting Room**

***12 Minutes Remaining***

As the two tiny Mythical Pokémon were setting up an invisible speaker, a pen landed on Harmony's paw while the paper slowly floated on to Jirachi's pointy head. "Remind me again why Dialga made this idea?" He said picking the paper and giving it to Harmony.

"I told you, in a few minutes, there will that that much time remaining in this song, and the only Pokémon who has this stopwatch is Manny." She grabbed the paper and chuckled when looking at it. "Darkrai's probably going to follow cleanup protocol, which means we need to get them out of here." From the paper, she teleported for three seconds to get something before coming back with a vinyl. "And I hope the song will do that."

Luckily, Jirachi zoomed to the library and grabbed an antique turntable. No one really used this, so it was really collecting dust before Jirachi grabbed it. "Alright let's get this installed."

"Guys!" Abby and Chris were pulled from the building already as a precaution, so they were keeping watch of the projector. "Bisharp's back."

Everyone moved back to the screen, where the room where Cord was still sleeping was being shown. "Looks like you're a deep sleeper," Bisharp said chuckling after. After a few moments, he heard a soft buzzing sound coming from the corner of the room—which was the place the camera was in.

"Uh oh…" Jirachi said, speaking for everyone. As he turned around to the corner, the bubble on Cord's nose popped, waking him up. Meanwhile, Bisharp didn't notice, as he was too focus on the camera, and didn't notice Cord getting on top of his floating tail and using Volt Tackle on him until the last second.

Cord rammed him into the corner, knocking him out at the same time. "…Take that, bitch." He mumbled to himself before groaning in pain.

"Abby, Chris. I'll be right back." Harmony used Teleport to get to Cord's room.

* * *

**1:15 am**

**Darkness Headquarters 17F (Roof)**

***5 Minutes Remaining***

I took a deep breath in the final steps when I finally reached the roof of Darkness Headquarters. "Alright… I'm here." I yell out to no one. "You've gotta be fucking kidding me." A dark shadow appeared on the floor which made me move slightly closer before turning on Turbo Boost.

The shadow slowly rose from the ground, revealing Darkrai about to fire off an attack. I got into my ready stance and started looking at his hands, which were about to fire off. A few moments later, I would be right, as he fired with his two hands a Dark Pulse…

And I could feel the attack shake the entire building to its core when I dodged.

"What the…" I said before starting to move at Darkrai. He launched his signature move, Dark Void at my voice making me start to roll away with each attack. Iron Tail was used for me to swipe Darkrai backwards to fire a Thunderbolt.

Somehow, the Thunderbolt passed through him, and he threw a Shadow Ball about three times the size that Abby and Chris would fire… I wasn't even surprised when the attack hit me because it was so fast.

I fell to the floor and deactivated Turbo Boost. While my hearing went in and out, I could hear Darkrai chuckled and say, "It pays to have Double Team."

* * *

**Meanwhile:**

**1:16 am**

**Darkness Headquarters 15F**

***4 Minutes Remaining***

"Let me get this straight." Cord said to Harmony as her and Jirachi were finishing setting up the speaker and turntable in the next room. "You're using that song—which I have no idea what it is even—to signal Manny to get out? He doesn't even know that this place is gonna disappear!"

"That's where you come in." Harmony said. "You're going to teleport to nearby the roof and grab Manny just before the song finishes!"

Cord sighed. "I only have one Teleport left in me. So either you Teleport me up there, or I'm gonna have to…" He paused himself for Harmony to stare at him and eventually sighed. "I'll get on it." Cord started floating away from the room, to start finding the stairs nearby.

Harmony meanwhile moved back to Jirachi as he finished setting everything and just needed to place the vinyl in the turntable. "Manny is losing right now… You think the song might help?"

Harmony shrugged. "Let's find out, shall we!?" She flipped the vinyl into the turntable and pressed play. As the stylus moved to the vinyl, Harmony and Jirachi both broke the wall and high-five Teleported away…

* * *

**1:17 am**

**Darkness Headquarters 17F (Roof)**

***3 Minutes Remaining***

As I slowly woke myself up from being slightly unconscious, I could hear the very first beats coming from the song I chose starting, bringing life back into my soul. Darkrai's head raised when the song was being played, making him very confused. I meanwhile quickly stood up and gave a grin. "Like it?"

"What the heck is this?" Darkrai asked taking a step back.

"What? You never heard what a human song sounds like?" I asked tilting my head sarcastically. "You're in for a real treat then." My eyes quickly turned blue as I activated Turbo Boost, and Darkrai got ready to slow down for a counterattack. "Let's go!" I knew there was a complete difference than all the other times I used Turbo Boost… I wanted to hear the entire song in normal speed.

When I charged at Darkrai, I was still going my same speed, but time didn't slow down.

This startled him, and I gave my first contact with him using Iron Tail. A flurry of punches came soon after, following the lyrics' speed.

_Needless to say, I keep in check_

_She was a bad-bad, nevertheless_

_Callin' it quits now, baby, I'm a wreck_

_Crash at my place, baby, you're a wreck_

_Needless to say, I'm keeping in check_

_She was a bad-bad, nevertheless_

_Callin' it quits now, baby, I'm a wreck_

_Crash at my place, baby, you're a wreck_

Around this time, Darkrai fired a Dark Pulse for me to back away from him, and it slightly worked. I ended up quickly firing a Thunderbolt as a distraction and throwing an Electro Ball nearby his… area. The attack hurt…

A lot.

I calmly waited for him to get back up from the ground while closing my eyes.

_Ooh-ooh, some things you just can't refuse_

_She wanna ride me like a cruise and I'm not tryna lose_

As the chorus played, I used Quick Attack to charge at him before trying to use Iron Tail. The attack would miss and Darkrai grabbed me and tossed me around like a ragdoll. In the end, he threw me towards the edge, where I barely held on. I for some reason decided to sing along this next part as I slowly moved up. "_Every time I'm leavin' on ya_

"_You don't make it easy, no_

"_Wish I could be there for ya_

"_Give me a reason to, oh."_

I lip synced the next part as my body decided to activate Turbo Boost. I fired an Electro Ball quickly and started circling around Darkrai. His eyes followed me circling and decided to fire a few Shadow Balls at once. When I barely dodged them all, Quick Attack was used to headbutt Darkrai and make him unbalanced. I took a quick breather. "_I know you're scared of the unknown_

"_You don't wanna be alone_

"_I know I always come and go_

"_But it's out of my control."_

The second chorus made me for some reason thrust an Electro Ball to the ground, which made the entire roof lift a few feet. I started giving punches to Darkrai again, which worked at first… But this time he finally dodged them all and used Dark Pulse, making me get launched to the air. And I cursed silently when the song neared the end.

_You're the sunflower, you're the sunflower_

"You really got on my nerves…" A Shadow Ball formed in his left hand. "Now you're gonna die."

As soon as the last note hit, an explosion happened on Darkrai's, which caused him to yell in pain. He flopped down and my vision saw that made be chuckle and cry at the same time.

It was Cord, and he somehow used Thunder Punch.

"Welcome back to the land of the living?" I said chuckling soon after. I slowly got myself standing up a few moments later, of course after a few groans.

Darkrai chuckled soon after. "You all know… This isn't over." When Cord was about to grab him, he faded away from this entire building.

"Where did he go?" I said touching the floor. He didn't turn invisible because he would have been felt there.

"I don't think we should worry about that now. We got to get out of here!"

I tilted my head. "Why are you saying..." I looked down to realize the roof was disappearing as well. "That!" Cord barely bent down to grab me by the paw and held me on for me to avoid certain death. "…Let's get outta here." I said quickly.

Cord quickly nodded and used Teleport… And I fell asleep.

* * *

**12/25/19**

**8:00 am**

**?**

I could hear an alarm clock beeping in the distance, making me groan loudly. "Shut up…" I mumbled before moving myself to turn it off... Wait, alarm clock?! My eyes opened to notice the same alarm clock I woke to everyday was with me… "I'm…" I looked at my paws, which were hands with skin now. "I'm back? Was that all a dream?" My phone next to me started ringing weirdly, having the 8-bit Pokémon theme playing. The only person who has this contact is Cord…

My hand immediately moved to pick up the phone, and I moved it toward my old ear. "Hello?"

"…Hey Manny."

My eyes widened. "Abby? Is that you?!" I could tell that whoever was there was chuckling.

"Yes, it is me, Manny. I told you we were going to talk about that."

I cleared my throat and closed the door. "Look, I know that what I was gonna saying was pretty stupid, but—."

"I'm gonna stop you right there," Abby said, stunning me very quickly. "…I honestly don't mind!"

"You… don't mind?" I said. She could hear the confused tone I was making.

"I'm saying, when you come back, I'd like to give it a shot!"

She couldn't tell, but I was blushing hard from that. "T-Thanks Abby…" My face soon after turned into a confused one. "Wait, when?" I knock came into my window which made me turn to see a female with pink hair and blue eyes staring right at me. "Hold on…" I said placing the phone down and opening the window.

"Manny," The girl said in a familiar voice. "Please don't leave me in the New Jersey cold again." She started walking in and put the call on speaker.

"Excuse me, who are you?" I said closing the window.

The girl sighed and used her hand to lift me in the air. "This enough proof for you?"

"Harmony?" I said while she put me down. "What are you doing here?!"

Harmony sighed and sat down while someone spoke on the phone. "I think we can answer that together." My attention turned to the phone as I immediately recognized the voice.

"Cord… Now I know I'm not crazy." A chuckle came out my mouth soon after. "Am I gonna come back soon?"

Harmony and—probably—Cord shrugged. "We got to find someone from the Darkness first before we can bring you back… Even then I need the Council's approval."

Cord probably knew that she was gonna say that. "Manny, open your drawer that has your DS." With a confused face, I slowly opened it to see a vinyl with a certain badge sticking on top of it…

"You're giving me this?" I questioned. I could hear Cord start laughing.

"Why not? They always have more in the guild…"

My mouth was hung open when I sat next to the phone. "So this entire adventure wasn't a dream then?"

Cord paused himself to think about what he was going to say and had the most confidence I've ever seen someone have with this statement. "Of course, that was a dream. But who says dreams aren't real?"

The doorknob was shaking, trying to open the door. "Gotta go! I'll see you later Manny." Harmony said using Teleport… Guess humans can use those if they were part Pokémon.

"…Talk later, Manny." Cord hung up the phone just as soon as my mom opened the door.

"Manny, why did you lock the door for a second?" she asked to me.

"Sorry mom… We're going to see Phoenix today, aren't we?" I asked.

She nodded. "You always say it's the best way to take your mind of something…" She left the room for me to get dressed.

I looked outside… It was snowing, like the afternoon Cord disappeared, which kinda made me teary eyed. "Heh…" I said holding the guild badge on my hand. "Happy third-year anniversary Cord…"

I know that you are proud.

***Game File Saved***


	22. Epilogue: Only Human

**Epilogue: Only Human**

**1/10/20**

**10:00 pm**

**Dream World**

It's been about two weeks since that night that I became a Pokémon, and I've been having the time of my life. Harmony let me and Cord come to the same place in the Dream World every night until I can return for "training purposes." That was her excuse to the Council, even though both of us had to rely on luck to wake up in our Pokémon forms…

This day was surprising because Harmony came in one hour of our dream.

Cord—who was human right now, while I was a Pikachu—figured out that she was here and ran over. "You said to us that today you have a surprise." Harmony nodded and handed us two yellow marble looking orbs wrapped around flexible wire. When Mew put it on both of us, it glowed, making my eyes gleam.

"What exactly is this?" Cord asked putting his hand on the stone. It quickly reacted by shining a stream of light into his face, blinding him. When he eventually opened it, he noticed his left, no, both hands having white fur! "What… Did the—."

Harmony came forward to start laughing. "Yes, the orb did that!" She said grinning after. Cord meanwhile started growing a brown tail that had an inflated, electric-shaped end that turned yellow soon after.

"How did you even do this in the first place Harmony?" I said moving next to the floating tail. Cord suddenly shrank to be about more than a foot taller than me, and he finally hopped on the tail.

"Well," She said moving closer. "My ability to transform into my human and Pokémon forms, one of J's wish tags, and Dialga and Palkia's tiny bit of space and time makes this. I introduce you to the Poké Orb Mark 1!"

While the fur surrounded Cord more, my orb didn't have that electric marking that Cord had. "Um… What's up with mine?" I said to Harmony as it glowed at me. I suddenly grew in height as my skin came back instead of fur! After a few changes, I was almost human, but my ears and tail stayed the same.

"Right…" Harmony said sighing. "When you're already a Pokémon, the orb switches to become the Hú Orb Mark 1… There are probably some kinks left to fix, though." When Cord's fur reached his head, his hair became brown and shrank into the body. Electric pouches came in his cheeks, and his nose shrank, making him a full Alolan Raichu. The Poké Orb automatically turned white, making the Hú Orb activate.

"Okay," Cord said in his Pokémon form. "Can we change back?"

Harmony nodded. "It's limited for now, but I can try to fix that part later." She touched my forehead which made my ears and tail recede back into my body. "…Talk later!"

We waved bye as she used Teleport. "Alright Cord," I said while bringing the same turntable from a week ago. "I think it's finally time for you to get with the times and learn new music."

Cord groaned. "Dude, you told this to me for the past week and you got nothing that interested me." I rolled my eyes in response.

"That's because I saved the best for last, Cord!" A vinyl appeared in my hands and had a label on it.

**Only Human (2019)**

**Jonas Brothers**

"Wait," Cord said turning human. "Jonas Brothers? Isn't that the trio that broke up a few years ago for weird purposes?"

"Yes, but guess what!" I placed the vinyl down. "The Jonas Brothers are back together. The Jonas Brothers are back together. The Jonas Brothers are back together!" I said laughing soon after.

Cord decided to put the vinyl in the device and looked at me for a second. "Thank you."

I tilted my head confused. "For what?"

"…For making me feel human." Cord pressed on play.

**To Be Continued...**


End file.
